


The Last Days of Magic and Glory

by tzzzz



Series: Epochs [1]
Category: The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Bestiality, Birth Control, M/M, Mpreg, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Mythology - Freeform, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-18
Updated: 2012-07-11
Packaged: 2017-11-08 00:41:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 17
Words: 68,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/437199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tzzzz/pseuds/tzzzz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The tale of Thor, Loki, a magical horse, and abandoning youth in favor of wisdom.  Or the story of how Loki gave birth to Sleipnir and how Thor learned how to be king.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Summer's Ride

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Loki fixes the problem of paying the wall-builder, Thor is determined to find him. Instead he finds a magic horse who takes him for an unforgettable ride.

Thor paced the private dining hall, knowing that he was showing his nerves, but not caring. His mother watched him with concern, extending a hand as if to stop him. But Thor could tell she was worried too - she had barely touched her food, but had taken more of the wine than was her habit.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Fandral offered. “He’s Loki. With that silver tongue of his, I’m sure he can get out of whatever trouble he may find himself in.”

“So you think he may be in trouble?” Thor halted in front of his friend, demanding.

Fandral huffed a frustrated sigh. “How am I to know? But when is Loki not in a little bit of trouble?” He gave an anemic laugh, hoping that Thor would join in the gentle mocking that their group normally shared towards Loki.

“If you mean to jest, you do so poorly,” Thor spat, stepping up to Fandral and looming over him.

Sif was quick to intervene, inserting her slighter frame easily between them. “What Fandral means to say, though you are right, he does so in incredibly poor taste,” she glared at her companion, “is that Loki can take care of himself.”

“And he is known to run off for days, even whole moons,” Volstagg added between tearing the meat off a turkey leg and stuffing his mouth with rolls.

“Your appetite betrays your concern, friend,” Thor replied. Volstagg’s gluttony was legendary, but today was excessive even for him. Thor was for the most part able to suppress his concern at Loki’s mysterious absences. After centuries to accustom himself to Loki’s need for secrecy in his exploration of magic and time to explore the many worlds of the Yggdracil, Thor no longer worried. Certainly, he’d long ago learned that Loki did not for a moment consider that his friends and family would be worried if he disappeared with no explanation. But this time was different. “It is not like Loki to accomplish a feat of trickery and not return to gloat.”

“It is like him to enjoy making you worry,” Sif argued. “If only because it shows him how weak he is capable of making you.”

Sif realized her mistake a moment after she had spoken, wincing as Frigga slammed her wine cup down. “Lady Sif, there is no weakness in my son’s concern for his brother. I would ask you to leave us now.”

Sif nodded stiffly, stalking out, the warriors three stalking after her (once Volstagg had made himself a plate to take along). 

“I am right to be worried, mother,” Thor argued. “When father told Loki that his life would be forfeit if he did not make right the situation, he appeared afraid. I thought perhaps he was afraid of father, but now I think he was afraid of what undoing the consequences of his capriciousness would entail.”

Frigga sighed, standing to approach Thor and laying a comforting hand on his arm. “I cannot imagine what plan your brother conceived in order to stop the giant from completing that wall and making the very sun and moon forfeit. But my instincts tell me, as yours tell you, that something is amiss and that we must find him.” Frigga fidgeted nervously, as though there were more worries and secrets still trapped within her, waiting to break out. Thor did not notice.

“And father?” Thor asked. It perturbed him that father had not come to this little meeting that Thor had called, that he did not seem to care what became of his second son.

“Your father believes in having faith - in your strength, in Loki’s magic and his wits. He will not worry, if only because he cannot permit himself to doubt.”

“I will speak with Heimdall. I will find out where my brother has gone and I will bring him back.”

Frigga nodded. It was the only course of action available to them. Thor had already checked Loki’s usual haunts. If Heimdall could not give them a clue, then the search would be so vast as to be futile.

***

“I’m afraid your brother grows too skilled,” Heimdall replied. He averted his great golden, knowing eyes - the only windows to massive Heimdall’s emotions. “He has taken to hiding himself from me when he pleases.”

Thor’s grip on Mjolnir tightened reflexively. Of course, Loki would not make his own rescue easy. “When did you last see him?”

“After the Allfather commanded him, he returned briefly to his rooms to revise a spellbook and collect some magical ingredients. Then he left the city gates and walked along the wall. He shielded himself from me before he reached the giant and his horse.”

“But you could still see the giant and the horse?” Thor asked, hopeful. It was obvious where Loki was headed, after all.

“I saw the horse break free of its bindings and run off into the woods, but I did not see how your brother achieved it.”

“Where is the horse now?”

Heimdall stared into the distance for some time. “He roams free on the great plains. As far as I can see, your brother is not with him.”

Thor sighed. It was hopeless. But he had to try, for his dear brother, the one he swore always to protect.

“Thank you, mighty Heimdall. I shall continue my search, but let me know immediately if you do glimpse my brother.” Thor claps Heimdall hard on the back. This man had watched them play as children and watched them grow into men. He saw all and it comforted Thor as much as he knew it bothered Loki. Thor was not surprised that Loki had invented a way to hide himself from Heimdall’s gaze, but he was disappointed. Heimdall might see all, but he did not speak of it (at least of Loki’s mischief or Thor’s various indiscretions). Thor liked the idea that Heimdall was there to summon help should they ever get in over their heads.

“Of course, my prince,” Heimdall replied. “But take solace in the fact that if Loki were truly in danger, he would not bother to hide himself from me.”

That thought did calm Thor somewhat. If Loki was in inescapable mortal danger, as many times before, he would shout out for Heimdall and for help. But Loki was secretive and prideful. Thor worried that whatever was keeping his brother from returning was grave enough to shame him, but not grave enough for him to overcome his pride and call for help. Thor could think of many things that could compel such a reaction and all were dangerous.

Thor returned to his rooms in order to gather supplies - a satchel of apples and his hunting gear - a few magical ropes that could form themselves into nets at a word (a gift from Loki), a simple bow and an arrow that Thor could call back to him as he called Mjolnir, and clothes made of rough cloth and thick leather in browns and greens - more like Loki’s customary attire than Thor’s. Thor’s armor was heavy and ill-equipped for a quick search of the wood, but Thor could not bring himself to leave his hammer behind. He also stopped by the healing rooms to grab some herbs, in case Loki had been injured.

Thor contemplated making the journey by horseback, but halfway to the stable, he changed his mind. Horseback would be quicker, but Thor was reminded of their childhood games of hide and seek in which Loki would cheat shamelessly, using his magic. Over the years, Thor had grown accustomed to the subtle feeling of wrongness, the almost imperceptible chill that ran down his spine, which signaled that Loki was near and concealed somehow. But such searches were slow-going and contemplative. No, better to leave the distraction of a horse behind and make his way on foot.

Thor used Mjolnir to fly to the site where Loki had undoubtedly confronted the builder. The wall had been finished by now, of course, but the Asgardian laborers’ work was so much more delicate than the giant’s had been - perfectly squared stones of manageable size fitted neatly together as though they had not come from the ground at all. In contrast, the frost giant’s work involved great hunks of stone the size of a man or larger, cut imperfectly, but fitting together somehow better for it. Thor could feel what Loki had meant when he insisted that work be done by the frost giant, even if the price he sought was too high - the Asgardian-built section would forever be a weak point in the otherwise strong monolith. Thor felt almost guilty that they had not paid the builder in the end, even though he had not been able to stomach the price. Instead, for his great work, the builder had lost first his mighty horse and then his life at the Allfather’s hands.

Thor winced, wondering if he would be able to met out such justice when he became king. In war, Thor was ruthless. He thought not of the lives he took, but only of victory. But he struggled with deception and struggled moreso to find that sense of ruthlessness in business and the political affairs of the kingdom. Thor often wondered why there needed to be only one king. Surely, Loki, with his silver tongue and his love of intrigue should handle the politics and Thor could handle whatever wars came their way - for Asgard was rarely without them. 

Thor spent a long moment standing at the place in the wall where the stallion had run off. He forced his breath to calm, for his eyes to search out clues and for his other senses to alert him to the presence of his brother. After a long contemplation he realized that there was nothing to be found here and made his way into the wood. It had been a wet spring, and on the night that Loki had succeeded in halting progress on the wall, it had rained a torrent, wiping away any hoofprints that might indicate the horse’s direction. But there were paths in the wood and broken twigs and thin branches that indicated they had been traversed recently and at great speed by a large animal; the builder’s horse had been frightfully large, monstrous, almost.

The trail ended in a clearing full of sweet flowers that had recently been chewed by a horse. Thor spread out his cape and sat down, forcing himself into the meditative state that he despised. Thor had never been good at stillness, but he had put up with it for training and later in order to try to learn at least a little of the concentration that allowed Loki his magic. He had used his meager skill at stillness to find his brother upon occasion or for stealth in hunting (rarely in war), but he was desperate now.

Sadly, even his desperation was not enough to keep the meditation from slipping into deep sleep, the weariness of the journey combined with the exhaustion of worry dragging him down into the world of dreams.

He twitched against his soft leather cape as the sunlight faded, the long stems of flowers casting strange, jagged shadows around him. He dreamed of this very meadow. Loki stumbled into it, fear etched deep in his profound green eyes. He limped, falling to his knees before forcing himself up and onward. The stallion was huge and black as it broke through the branches, its great nostrils heaving. Loki cried out, tears streaming down his face as he struggled back. The stallion reared above him, kicking out its great legs. Loki was trapped.

Thor’s eyes flew open and he was on his feet in a mere heartbeat. Mjolnir was in his hand before he could blink the sleep from his eyes. “Loki!” he cried out, looking around desperately for his brother.

His heart was beating fast with adrenaline that would not fade with the dream. He charged back into the woods, impelled onwards by some invisible force that felt like fear and wrath and panic all curled up into a festering ball of black despair. He did not care to find a path, smashing trees to splinters with his massive hammer should they dare stand in his way. It did not take long to emerge on the shore of a mountain lake, its waters still and clear.

“Loki!” Thor called out. He could feel his brother’s magic in the air, if not his presence. “Please, brother. What has happened to you?”

Thor panted down from his previous panic, letting the moonlight on the lake soothe his frayed nerves. The panic was another of Loki’s glamors. Sometimes he used it to force foes away and other times, as now, he used it to draw an enemy into a trap. 

Thor knew his brother would not hurt him, so there must have been another reason to lead Thor here. And there was. He glimpsed a white figure in the moonlight. At first he thought it was a unicorn or maybe even a pegasus, that figure staring at him across the still waters of the lake. There was something calm in its gaze - wise. Thor never enjoyed the mystical as his brother did, but he has always been as unafraid of magic as he was of war, so he charged headlong through the marshy reeds at the lake’s edge, stumbling after the massive white horse, of size to rival the black stallion owned by the builder.

The horse was unimpressed by Thor’s struggles, continuing to slowly chew the sweet grasses it had found on the lake’s shore. It did not startle or flinch when he approached, only stared at him with cool green eyes. It’s white coat glowed ethereally in the moonlight, seeming to weave a spell that pulled at the edges of consciousness in the same manner as the Norns. This horse was magical, no doubt. It held within it a house of many twisted rooms, a creature of illusion that stored the rest of its nature outside of time and space. 

Thor approached slowly. Like the Norns, like his brother, like all things that lived with one foot in the physical and one foot in the dimensions of heaven, this creature could be unpredictable, dangerous in its otherworldly motivations. But when Thor reached his hand out to pet it, it stepped up to him, nuzzling his palm. Its skin was cool, like it was made of the moonbeams itself. 

“Where is Loki?” Thor asked those ageless eyes. “Where is my brother?” 

The horse snorted, tossing its head. It could be amusement or one of those unfathomable feelings that only a magical horse would know. 

Thor ran his hands through the horse’s silky mane, perfectly untangled despite how the horse appeared to roam free. “Will you lead me do him?” Thor whispered. “Is that why he has drawn me here?”

The horse did not reply - not that Thor was expecting it to. But after a long moment, in which Thor smoothed his palm down its flank, the horse kneeled, letting Thor climb up onto its broad back. Thor was massive and a god. He only took the strongest stallions for his mounts, but this strange white mare carried his weight without a problem, strolling through the woods and then galloping along the great plain, through fields of high silver grass to cracked valleys of salt and stale water, beneath mountain peaks covered in snow, through deserts, beneath waterfalls, up thin mountain ridges surrounded by stars and the magic of the universe.

Thor hunted game in woods of great towering trees with his bow and single arrow and his companion munched on wild grasses and drank from clear mountain streams. Horses were capable of sleeping standing up, but at night, his mount kneeled down and let Thor curl against her for warmth. Thor looked at the stars and imagined other realms, felt magic coursing through the world as he’d never felt before. He became inured to the stillness that came with the steady rhythm of the horse running down the moonlight plain and the way the wind rippled in exact counterpoint to his motion as they galloped seemingly straight into the dawn light. He began to feel the differences in the rays that his skin absorbed and those which were reflected back into space. He could feel energy humming around him, the knots in the tendrils of matter that made up the universe. He teased at them, feeling on the brink of some great discovery. Magic lived, it breathed, it pulsed in the very nature of all things.

In the silence, with no one but his horse and the beautiful sprawling nature of Asgard, Thor was finally coming to understand what he brother found so enchanting when his eyes clouded over and he dove into the fabric of the cosmos, returning half as an illusion and half as a dream.

Thor felt Loki’s presence many times on their journey. Sometimes it was the spine-tingling feel of being watched and other times a feel of love and comfort that he’d felt since childhood seeping deep into his bones. Other times it was an abiding sense of joy that seemed to creep in from the outskirts of awareness rather than within. 

The white horse seemed to ride on the eddies of the wind and to delight in freedom and chaos. There was no pattern to its movements, zigzagging across the plain, but every change of direction, every flick of its mane, were steeped in firm intent, so tangible that Thor imagined that if he just pulled loose one of those knots in the firmament, he could see himself and the horse riding straight into some glorious future.

They did not find Loki, but when the horse lead him back to the gates of the capital, its head hung low and weary from their travels, Thor felt as though the stillness had settled into his soul, contentment shrouding him like the great warm blanket he and Loki would cuddle under as children. 

Loki did not mean to be found, but he meant to share something of his soul with Thor, that much was certain. Thor knew he had not met the horse by accident, but through some profound machination of his brother’s.

Thor smiled, stroking the horse’s neck as he lead her through the pastures on the outskirts of the city, down sun dappled paths strewn with leaves. Summer had passed them by as they rode and fall was upon them.

“You can tell him that he need not return swiftly if he does not wish it,” Thor told the horse. “I understand now, why the world tempts him away. But I miss him dearly. Tell him to return to me so that we may share these gifts he has given me.”

The horse snorted, seemingly disdainful of the idea that she could communicate with Loki at all. She had a sense of humor, Thor had learned in their travels. 

Thor found a stall for his new steed in the stables and left the door unlocked when the horse gave a frustrated whinny when he made to lock it. 

“Of course,” Thor acknowledged. “I will not steal your freedom.” A sadness settled suddenly upon his heart, because he was a crown prince, one-day a king, and he could feel the creeping weight of the chains that would bind him with responsibility one day. There would be no seasons spent riding on the endless plain, no frivolous nights spent camped out in the woods or dozing with his head in his brother’s lap as Loki read about the secrets of the great beyond. Though Thor had been full grown for centuries now, he was finally feeling the gate to his childhood swing shut, as he had closed the gate to the pasture door earlier.

He patted the horse with sorrow, knowing that she would one day again be free, while Thor would remain here. 

“Do you think that’s where he’s gone?” Thor asked the horse. “Do you think that with father’s threats he realized that mischief would no longer be tolerated and that if he returned, it would be to responsibility and not freedom? We are growing into our inheritance day by day. Do you think he meant to make me realize all the wonders of the universe that would be denied once the duties of the throne came upon me?” Loki’s gifts were always part wonder and part cruelty, after all. 

The horse did not answer, instead munching on the hay that the stable hands had fetched for her. 

Thor sighed. “I must go to the palace now. But promise me this: if you do long for freedom once again, you will not leave before letting me say goodbye.” Like his brother had. 

The horse stopped chewing, nuzzling at Thor’s throat in assent. With one last stroke her her flank, Thor made his way toward the palace.


	2. A Return to Responsibility

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor returns to find his family and friends have worried about him. During his next Odinsleep, Thor is to try his hand at ruling.

There was a saying that gossip traveled faster than lightning in the Capital and Thor believed it to be true. Before he even set foot in the palace, Sif and the warriors three were running down the great steps leading up to Odin’s domain in order to greet him.

Sif reached him first, throwing herself into Thor’s arms in a tight embrace. 

“Lady Sif! I have missed you!” Thor proclaimed, though he wondered why she gripped him so tightly. Volstagg enveloped them both in a hug and back pats from Fandral and Hogan soon followed. 

When Sif pulled away, her eyes were shining. Thor frowned. Sif was not inclined to swoon or to any great shows of emotion (other than the occasional bout of righteous anger).

“It is good to see you, Prince Thor,” Fandral added. Fandral never called Thor by his title unless he was angry. Thor frowned further.

“By your hammer, Thor, you can’t expect us to be a little upset after you ran off like that for four whole moons,” Volstagg complained, even though his eyes were wide with mirth and amazement to have Thor home.

“It has _only_ been four moons, shield brothers. I missed you all, but we have been parted for longer.” Actually the only time Thor had been outside of Asgard for longer was on a quest to find the lair of an old sorceress, a quest on which Loki had insisted that only Thor accompany him. They had been gone for nearly a year. Thor smiled a little, remembering those times. Thor and Loki teased each other mercilessly, but sometimes the presence of their friends turned their good-natured bantering sour. Loki was self-conscious around others and Thor backed down far less easily than when he was alone with his brother. On that quest they had raced their horses and joked and bathed naked in mountain streams. Though Thor was loathe to admit it, Loki was a better hunter than Thor, and with his magic, a far superior cook. They had feasted and told stories of their adventures when they were apart and Loki had tried to teach Thor some basic spells and Thor had tried to show Loki how he might finally beat Sif in a fair fight (Loki constantly beat her in unfair ones). It had been a good year.

“Loki is corrupting you, Thor,” Fandral complained. “It is not like you to simply wander into the woods and not return for four moons. If not for Heimdall’s vision, your mother would have been worried to the point of tears.”

“She very nearly was,” Sif replied, accusingly. Even though Sif eschewed most of the trappings of womanhood, as a lady, she had always been closer to Frigga than Thor’s other friends, drawn, sometimes kicking and screaming, into the affairs of the ladies at court. “Your father has delayed his Odinsleep awaiting your return. To be without both their sons at this time troubles them.”

“They are our parents, but our lives are not theirs to lead. I informed you that intended to search for my brother - that is all you are owed.”

Sif looked annoyed, Fandral a little offended. Volstagg frowned and Hogun was silent as usual.

“You are a spoiled child,” Fandral spat. “We were worried about you.”

“But not worried about Loki? He’s still out there.” Even though something deep within him knew beyond a doubt that Loki was not in any danger, he knew equally well that whatever he was forced to do in service of the realm was not pleasant, probably injurious. 

“Thor, that’s different,” Sif pleaded. “Such behavior is common for Loki, but not for you.”

“Maybe I’m changing,” Thor spat. Loki had started worrying them all at the beginning before they became used to it, after all. Maybe he’d figured it out long ago - that he need not bow to their expectations.

“It is your right to change,” Hogun spoke up slowly. “But it is also our right to stop having faith in you.”

“A threat?” Thor asked, suddenly panicked. His friends had been by his side since they were children. They had grown into great warriors together and Thor could not imagine a future without them by his side.

“A caution,” Hogun replied. 

Thor nodded. Hogun did not speak often, but when he did, it was wise. “I must see my father.”

***

Odin was not so conciliatory as Hogun nor the rest of Thor’s warrior friends, who had clapped him on the back and forgiven him his season of folly. 

“I expect this of your brother, but not from you, Odinson.” His voice boomed loud and echoing in the vast hall of the throne room. “I have put off the Odinsleep, but you are derelict in your duties as my heir and future king. You should have been here.”

Thor had always thought that he would be the one that father chose to be king, but he admitted that a part of that was simple conceit. This was the first time father had chosen to articulate it out loud. “So I am to be king, then?”

Odin snarled. “You are here, at least. Your brother is given a simple task and then wanders off afterwards.”

Except, Thor was sure that it was not a simple task and that the weight of it was why Loki had not returned. He had grown more sure of that fact by the day when he and the horse were riding across the plain.

“Were you not just accusing me of wandering off?”

“You were absent, but your quest had a good intention behind it - to chase down your lost brother. It was not a kingly intention, for a king knows where he is needed and when to delegate such menial tasks. You still have much to learn, my son. I admit that perhaps I have been too kind and have allowed you to indulge in the follies of youth for too long. But now it is time for you to come into your inheritance. I see that now. The sleep is upon me and you shall attend to the matters of court in my stead - with your mother’s help, of course. And your brother’s, should he deign to return.”

Thor sighed. This had been what he’d wanted all along, wasn’t it? He had waited with bated breath for the day when his father would choose which of them would be king and he’d hoped, as long as he could remember, that he would be the one chosen. Then why did this seeming victory taste of ashes? Why would he rather be riding along a mountain ridge without a care in the world?

He followed his father down the wide golden halls of the palace. His skin tingled and itched with confinement and claustrophobia. He had never felt this way in the palace before - he’d grown up here. It was his home. 

Mother waited for them in Odin’s chambers where he would sleep. She stood immediately and hugged Thor to her the way she did after every quest and every battle. “Oh my son, I have been so worried.”

She looked behind him, expectantly.

“I did not find him, mother,” Thor replied. He did not regret not bringing Loki home, but he regretted putting that resigned, disappointed look on his mother’s face.

“Thor, you should not have made your mother worry so,” she scolded, but she had not yet released her grip on Thor’s arm. She was a formidable woman in her own right - a queen who ruled justly in her husband’s stead when the Odinsleep came upon him. But to Thor, she would always be his mother and a soft treasure to be protected. 

She hugged Odin to her, kissing him deeply before she helped him to lay down on the bed. Thor clasped one of his father’s hands and his mother the other as the gold field of magic drew itself around him and he slept.

Thor released his father's hand and sat down next to his mother, wrapping an arm around her. They stayed that way until the sun had set and the moon rose in the sky. And then, once he’d convinced his mother to sleep, Thor snuck out of the palace gates to the stables.

***

The horse appeared to be waiting for him. She stood in her stable with the same marvelous intent that had characterized their journey, her green eyes sharp with anticipation. 

Thor did not hesitate in climbing onto her back. They did not ride far, only into one of the fields at the edge of the Capital where a great oak tree grew. As children, Loki and Thor had pretended that it was Yggdracil itself and swung from its branches pretending that they were traveling to different worlds through the bifrost, when such travel was still new and wonderful to them. 

The horse drank from the nearby stream and then settled down under the branches of the tree, letting Thor lean on her flank. 

“My father means to make me into a king.”

Thor realized that he must be mad, consulting with a horse and not his friends, but Loki had always been Thor’s most trusted council and Thor’s warrior friends more a chaotic representation of his own psyche than clever in their own right. 

The horse snorted. 

“Yes, I know that it has been obvious for more than a century. But he said it for the first time. Loki’s disappearance has affected us all deeply this time. I think it is the end of father’s willingness to indulge him.”

The horse gave a pained whinny. 

“It is unfortunate, considering that it was Loki who solved the most recent royal problem, at great cost to himself, I fear.”

The horse nuzzled at Thor’s neck and he petted her gently. There was something soothing about her, perhaps the moonlight that seemed embedded in her skin. It could be that he missed his brother deeply, but Thor had come to love the horse and all that she represented. Maybe, when Loki returned, they could ride out together. She was big enough that even two grown men could ride on her back. 

“I miss him,” Thor whispered, a single tear flowing down his cheek and into the horse’s thick mane.


	3. The Autumn Hunt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor, Sif, the warriors three, and the horse accompany the troops on the traditional seasonal hunt.

Thor rose with the dawn and walked back to the stables at the horse’s side, picking berries from the side of the path and pausing to let the horse eat sweet flowers when they came upon them. When they returned to the stables, Thor gifted the horse an apple and made his way to the palace in order to hold court. Thor had just enough time to change into his ceremonial armor before he took his seat beside his mother at the council table. She shot him a worried look, but they were soon too involved in the monotonous minutiae of politics for her to ask where he had spent the night.

After the council, there was lunch, with Royal Audience following. His mother would handle the audiences today while Thor observed, but tomorrow she said that he would be making the decisions. Thor fidgeted nervously, barely touching his lunch. Luckily, Volstagg had come to court today and was happy to eat what Thor couldn’t finish.

“You’re coming with us on the hunt next week, are you not?” Volstagg asked, an arm casually thrown over Thor’s shoulders. Thor and Loki almost always accompanied the warriors on the seasonal hunt. It was a bonding experience for the troops when they were not at war and for the past few hundred years, Odin had remained in the palace and sent his sons in his stead. Thor still remembered how, as boys, their father had taught them how to use a bow and arrow and a net trap. He would send them out each day with different units of the men so that all of the warriors would be charmed by the young princes and by the trust the Allfather placed in them to mentor his sons for a day. Thor remembered returning to the great bonfire that marked the center of their huge camp and curling up with Loki while the men drank and told wild tales of valor and victory. Thor had hung on every word of glories past, while Loki had struggled to read by firelight. Thor had always shivered and crowded next to his brother, but despite his tiny frame, Loki seemed not to feel the cold, stroking Thor’s hair absently and ignoring the drunken boisterousness of the men.

For the first time, Thor was unsure if he should go along on the hunt. He had duties of the throne now, as Odin had. But Odin had also gone on the hunt with his men before his princlings were old enough to do so by themselves and without Loki here, Thor knew the men would be disappointed that no Odinson accompanied them. 

What troubled him most, however, was that he did not know if the horse would enjoy a hunt. She seemed more the type for an aimless ride than the plodding pace of moving through the forest with an army of men. But, Thor was hardly going to tell Volstagg that he needed to consult his horse before he went on a hunt with him. “I want to go,” he replied, “but it’s best to make sure I’m not needed here before I agree.”

Volstagg nodded. “It is difficult without your brother here.” Not all of Thor’s warrior friends got along with Loki. Sif, in particular, merely tolerated him because he was a prince and Thor’s brother. But Volstagg genuinely liked Loki and the two often went hunting together without the rest. Of course it didn’t hurt that Loki was probably one of the best hunters in the realm and Volstagg had one of the greatest appetites. “You might have a chance of catching the most this year. Though Hogun will not make it easy.”

Thor laughed along with his friend. Hunting took patience and an understanding of the subtle workings of nature that Thor just did not possess. He was never sure if Loki actually used magic to aid his traps or if the skills he’d learned from magic just made him more aware of the natural world. Thor only managed to up his scores by catching beast-like animals that needed to be subdued by strength. He would catch four or five bears and a handful of smaller animals in a week-long hunt, while Loki would snare hundreds and only subdue a bear if he felt like it.

“Do you think he’ll come back?” Volstagg asked without bothering to mention of whom he spoke. He seemed worried.

“I’m sure he will.” Thor decided not to tell Volstagg how Loki’s spirit had been ever-present on his journey. He did not need to be teased by Sif and Fandral when they found out.

***

The horse nudged Thor enthusiastically when he asked her about the hunt, so after gaining permission from Frigga, they rode out with the men.

“That is a huge horse,” Fandral said when Thor met them at the Bifrost.

“She’s beautiful,” Sif said, touching the horse with a reverent awe that reminded them all suddenly that Sif was a girl. Fandral blushed and Thor laughed.

“She is a beauty.”

“Where did you get her?” Hogun asked. “I would like a horse such as this.”

“I’m sorry, my friend, but I found her while wandering the wood in search of my brother.”

Hogun looked disappointed, but mounted his chestnut steed without complaint. Heimdall had already transported most of the men over and the royal party was all that remained. 

Thor patted the horse as if to brace her for the chaos they were sure to encounter on the other side. 

Sure enough, the revelry had already begun when they arrived and Thor had to slam Mjolnir to the ground in order to gain the men’s attention. 

“I know things have been quiet in the realm these past years. With no wars pressing the kingdom, you have grown restless. But, my father says that a great king does not seek out war, only patiently prepares for it should it come.”

The men nodded their heads, knowing full well that along with glory, war also brought bloodshed and tears and great losses.

“I know that the absence of Prince Loki, infuriating trickster that he is, also makes the Kingdom uneasy. I, for one, am happy not to wake up with my hair colored green of to have to check my wine flask to make sure that the wine has not transformed into snakes, but such pranks have kept me distracted from restlessness.”

The horse shifted agitatedly under Thor, but he did not dismount. “So, for this hunt, I ask only that you enjoy yourselves and that you enjoy this peace that we have been gifted. Feel the calm as you stalk these woods and rejoice in the messages you can hear from the universe in its silence.”

The men clapped uncertainty. They were not used to hearing such sentiments from Thor, who usually spoke of war and glory. Yes, he could be sentimental, even maudlin, at times, but Thor’s energy was usually boisterous, not contemplative, like the majority of the men he commanded.

“What I mean to say, brothers,” Thor added in his usual enthusiastic shout, “is let this be a great hunt! And let the best man win!” He thrust his hammer into the sky for a celebratory spark of lightning and then they were off with a battle cry. 

Once the great mass of riders reached the huge meadow in which they intended to make camp, they dropped their tents and other overnight gear before splitting into the small groups they normally used for fighting. One member from each small unit stayed behind to set up the camp. This year, it was Sif’s turn. Thor did not envy her the task of organizing the entire camp and setting up the tally board. 

Thor admitted that he was a little lost this year without Loki to direct them to a fertile part of the woods. But he took the lead. The horse turned her head to fix him with her pointed stare. And when Thor did not direct her, he felt the intention swelling in her movements as she led them to a secluded clearing near a rushing waterfall. Thor was grateful that none of his friends noticed that he was letting his horse make the decisions for him. Especially not when the horse seemed to nudge him, pointing subtly at various hollows and copses where she clearly intended for him to lay a trap.

Thor reminded himself that she was not any horse, but a magical horse, probably a gift from his brother. 

After traps had been laid in several areas that the horse led them to, they went off in search of bigger game. Thor and Sif, who was the team’s best tracker after Loki, would normally split off right away in search of a beast without setting any trap, but this time, Thor let the horse lead him to the mouth of a cave where undoubtedly one of the huge beasts known to this world dwelled. There were bones scattered outside of it and the air crackled with a strange energy.

“What kind of game is on this planet again?” Fandral asked.

Volstagg rolled his eyes. “You really are useless, are you not?”

Thor kept his mouth shut. Normally Loki would research the game of the particular world chosen for the hunt and would relay the information to Thor. This time Thor hadn’t bothered. 

“It’s Thor’s favorite,” Volstagg joked, elbowing Thor in the ribs. 

Thor had no idea what that meant. He didn’t have a favorite game animal. Maybe a bear? He let Volstagg shove him towards the cave mouth.

“But what’s in there?” Fandral whined. 

Thor saw a flash of green scales flying towards him before he heard Hogun respond. “A serpent.”

Of course, Thor’s “favorite” as in the animals Thor despised above all others. There was something equally mesmerizing and terrifying about snakes, especially giant ones that lived in caves. Thor smashed the serpent with his hammer, hard enough that he should have flattened its midsection, but its skin just shimmered, its powerful muscles contracting to repel the blow.

“Oh, these are tricky!” Volstagg laughed, launching himself at another snake that had slithered out of the cave. Of course they would live in nests. Thor was having that kind of day.

The serpent hissed angrily, coiling itself swiftly around Thor’s waist. He could feel the plates of his armor grinding together, squeezing his internal organs uncomfortably. But more hits with the hammer did nothing to dissuade the huge snake. It only squeezed harder.

Thor was a god and not in particular danger of dying from this discomfort. But it did beg the question of how he was actually going to get the serpent off.

The horse whinnied, kicking up off its hind legs. Thor was afraid that it would run, but instead it knocked Thor and the serpent over and stepped on the snake’s head with a sickening crunch. Though the snake’s body went limp around him, it still took Thor a while to unravel himself. Luckily, the warriors three had observed the horse’s maneuver and were easily dispensing their snakes at their weak points. In fact, Fandral, with his sword, had been much more effective at fighting the beast. 

“They tense their muscles,” Hogun observed, “making heavy blows ineffective.” And the head was the only part that didn’t have the thick ring of muscle.

Thor grabbed Sif’s double blade, which she’d lent to him in case of emergency, and soon the whole nest was dispatched.

“I heard they taste like chicken,” Volstagg remarked. They would have to return to camp straight away because even with the horses used only for transport, they would have trouble carrying so much meat back. Thor tried not to think of how Loki would have just magicked it all into a pocket of space-time, letting them ride back casually.

But when Thor tried to load up the horse with their spoils, she tossed her head and moved away. He frowned, but the horse was light on her feet, staying just a step ahead of him.

“Fine,” Thor grumbled. “I’ll carry it myself.”

“What, so now you take orders from a horse?” Volstagg teased.

“It’s not just any horse.”

“What, is it a magic horse?” Fandral asked. “You’re starting to sound like Loki.”

“Sometimes Loki is right.” In fact, Loki was more often right than Thor and Fandral combined. As much time as they spent fighting each other, Thor knew that it would probably be wise to follow Loki, at least when he was being serious. The problem with Loki was that he was so skilled at lying that it was near impossible to tell when he was being serious and when his ultimate goal was mere mischief.

“Let’s head back,” Hogun urged. “It is going to take us a long time on foot.”

***

It did take them a long time to return to camp. By the time they arrived, the sun had set and Sif already had the great bonfire and all the small cooking fires started. She seemed more annoyed than worried at their tardiness and proclaimed that because they were all covered in snake guts and it was too cold to bathe in the nearby stream, she would be taking one of their tents for herself and the smelly boys would have to share the other. 

They were the only group that had found and killed snakes, which according to Sif, were a luxury food and difficult to kill, thus giving them a huge lead on the hunt tally. Thor ordered that their kill be shared, even though many of the men had already eaten and they stayed up late drinking mead and telling stories around the great bonfire.

It all made Thor miss his brother more. Loki would always embellish the stories with little shows of magic - either casting images of the battle into the smoke of the fire or adding pyrotechnics and sound effects to them. He would also always have a good prank for the first night of the camp. One hunt he had magicked all of the men’s beards into a giant throw rug that he put it in the opulent, magically expanded tent that he would only share with Thor. Another year, he had changed everyone’s hunting gear to look like Sif’s and she got to smile at how they struggled to hold a bow and arrow with a protruding breastplate in the way.

Once Thor was good and drunk and on his way to maudlin, he excused himself from the party, the warriors three swiftly rising with him. 

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“We are going to spar to see who sleeps with you in the tent,” Volstagg explained.

In their state of inebriation, Thor wondered how such a thing would turn out.

“You three take it.” Thor had spent the last season sleeping under the stars with the horse, after all, and he found the idea more comfortable than squishing in with two of his drunken, smelly warriors.

“Won’t you be cold?” Fandral asked.

Surprisingly, Thor had never once been cold on his journey, even when they camped on snowy mountain peaks. Maybe it was the horse’s body heat or maybe some of the elemental magic it seemed to wield.

“I’ll be fine. Enjoy yourselves, for tomorrow we hunt again.”

They all smiled, patting each other on the back when saying good night. Thor smiled too, but there was something cloying about their presence - as though in those brief moons he had so wed himself to solitude that now he felt like a traitor abandoning it.

The horse was waiting for him just outside the firelight. She hadn’t followed the other horses into the nearby field of sweetgrass to pasture for the night. Thor patted the familiar neck and fed her an apple he had carried here just for her.

“Thank you for today,” he said. “Without my brother, I would have been lost about what to do. And thank you for saving me from the snake.”

The horse snorted, but nuzzled Thor nonetheless. He pulled himself onto her back and they walked away from the light of the fire towards a small copse of trees where they lay down for the night.

“This is my first hunt without him,” Thor replied. If they missed hunts it had always been together. Loki had never wandered off alone for this long before. 

The horse seemed to understand, because she nibbled a little at his hair affectionately. Thor wrapped an arm around her, feeling his brother’s presence close.

The next morning, Thor couldn’t help but grin when they returned to camp. A horde of small annoying birds had descended upon them at dawn, picking at everything with their sharp beaks and defecating everywhere. Sif looked particularly harassed, with her hair a tangled mess from where the birds had tried to nest. Eventually they had figured that loud noises scared the birds away and thus a few of the men had taken to banging pots and pans in a deafening cacophony.

Thor grinned. This was exactly a prank, for it could have been of nature, but it was the familiar chaos of the second day of the hunt after Loki had been making mischief.

“Good thing we slept apart,” Thor told the horse, swearing that he saw a twinkle in her eye.


	4. Unwanted Speculation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The warriors spar and share their opinions about Thor's time outside the palace.

After returning from the hunt, Thor’s days were monotonous. He now remembered why after only one day accompanying their father to court, he and Loki had agreed that it was better for princes to attend lessons than spend all day with their father. Court was boring. The politics were occasionally interesting, when a conflict of actual significance arose. But diplomacy involved a lot of speechmaking and only interested Thor when a visiting princess or prince wanted to be shown around. The Warrior’s Council sounded as though it should be fun, but in peacetime it was mostly logistics concerning how many troops to deploy to outposts, supply chains, and training stratagems. Despite the tedium, none of it beat the soul-sucking agony that was Royal Audience. Not only did Thor have to not fall asleep, but he had to pretend to care about the petty problems of the citizenry. He once found himself lightly pounding Mjolnir on his head while two goat farmers argued about the property line between their pastures. There was no doubt in his mind that Loki would be much more suited to all of this. But clever Loki had run away, leaving it to Thor.

Thor should’ve been on the front lines. He should’ve been giving inspiring speeches and creating songs of praise for his best warriors. He should’ve been training the troops instead of discussing how they should be trained and when war came, he should be atop the throne, glorious. 

The only fighting Thor ever got was when he sparred with his friends in the mornings before court. He didn’t even brawl in the dining hall anymore, at his mother’s insistence that it wasn’t “kingly.”

Thor’s only relief was at night when he strolled out to the stables. Then he and the horse would ride out past the pastures and find a place to sleep under the stars.

***

“Okay, enough,” Sif huffed one morning during sparring. Thor had just turned down Fandral’s offer for Thor to accompany them to a tavern that night. “What is wrong with you?”

“What do you mean?” Thor panted. He could take any one of his friends, even without Mjolnir, but Sif and Hogun were double-teaming him and putting up a good fight. 

“I think she means why you’d rather spend time with your horse than with us,” Fandral shouted from the other mat, earning a sharp punch to the face from Volstagg for his distraction.

Thor shrugged. He wasn’t going to tell them that the horse was his only connection to his brother, though he knew Sif suspected. “I like sleeping outside.”

“I enjoy the pleasures of the camp, myself,” Volstagg agreed. He had subdued Fandral and was sitting on top of him, waiting for Fandral to plead mercy. “But I also enjoy a rich mead and the company of my friends. Surely you need not spend _every_ night riding.”

“I don’t spend _every_ night riding,” Thor began to protest, trying to think to the last night he had spent in a bed. It had been a moon ago, when for Fandral’s birthday the friends had gone to a tavern and Thor had spent a pleasant evening in the embrace of the barmaid. The horse had not been pleased with him and had defecated on his shoe before making him chase her to their place of rest for the night.

Hogun took advantage of Thor’s distracted remembrance in order to grab him by the hair and slam him into the ground. He rolled out of the way, but was stopped by Sif separating her two-bladed staff and slamming one into the ground on each side of him, effectively pinning his arms. She pressed her boot into the back of his neck and Thor ceded. He heard Sif and Hogun slapping each other in triumph. 

“Is it Loki?” Sif asked as she pulled him up. 

Thor knew she understood that the magical horse was a connection to his magical brother, but Thor was unprepared for her to state it so bluntly. He gaped at her.

“It’s fine to miss him,” Fandral added from where he was now dancing around Volstagg again. “I actually miss the man a little myself. It’s fun to spar with those doubles he creates and with Loki around things are never dull. But ignoring your friends to sleep in the woods each night is an extreme reaction.”

“Valhalla, Fandral, you would fit in well at the ladies sewing circle,” Sif complained. And she would know, considering how many she’d been dragged to kicking and screaming - none of which improved her sewing. “I didn’t mean to make Thor talk about his feelings. Not that I’m discouraging you from doing so,” she added to Thor. “Or encouraging you. I meant to ask whether you are sneaking off every night in order to see Loki.”

“What?” Thor asked, stunned.

“The lady does have a point,” Volstagg mused. “Loki has conveniently disappeared after doing some no doubt despicable thing to cheat a man out of his payment. But the two of you are rarely separated for long. The most reasonable explanation for you sneaking out of the palace at night is to see your brother and probably unwittingly help him in whatever mischief he is planning.”

“Even though you claim to miss him,” Fandral added. “You are happy. Happier than I have seen you since you lost the right to ever enter Sif’s bed again when you lost that blindfolded fight with her.”

Sif smirked, reminding Thor of the many reasons he was both blessed and cursed to have ended his casual relationship with her. 

“Maybe I just got over it.”

Sif rolled her eyes, flipping her spear casually as she circled him. “You were over it three maidens later. Though, maybe Fandral is onto something. Maybe your late night rendezvous with Loki are more carnal in nature.”

Thor was dumbfounded enough that he didn’t even see Hogun take a running leap until the man had him pinned to the ground with a knife at his throat. 

“You think . . . me and _Loki_?”

Hogun shrugged and Volstagg shouted, “You did disappear into the wilderness for a season looking for him.”

“He’s my brother!” 

“It’s not unheard of,” Fandral pointed out. 

“And we’ve noticed how you look at each other,” Sif added with a feigned swipe at Thor’s face when he managed to grab ahold of Hogun’s boot and flip him off his feet.

“How is that?” Hogun asked.

“Loki looks a Thor like he wants to devour him body and soul, maybe with whipped cream on top,” Volstagg supplied.

“Is everything a food metaphor with you?” Fandral complained, ducking one of Volstagg’s meaty fists and using the momentum of a roll to trip him.

“And Thor looks at Loki like a puzzle he can’t wait to figure out,” Sif added.

“Because he _is_ impossible to figure out,” Thor argued. “He’s my brother.”

“Okay, fine, fine, you’re not playing naked flag-wrestling,” Sif acknowledged. “But if you were, I’m letting you know that I wouldn’t have a problem with it.”

“Me either,” the warriors three all chimed in.

Thor wanted to protest further that he had never thought about his brother that way. Loki was brilliant and he was someone who Thor loved deeply, but there were so many lies. Thor knew that he himself was not a complicated man. He appreciated simplicity, directness and sincerity and Loki was none of those things. Loki was entertaining and Thor believed that deep down he had a good heart, but lying was not attractive and by extension, Thor could not find him attractive. But curse Sif and the warriors three for even making Thor think that way. Loki was Thor’s brother, even if he were the most attractive man on the planet, they would still be brothers first before all things.

“My friends, I swear to you: Loki and I are not lovers; I am not secretly meeting with him in the woods at night; I really am spending time riding the horse and sleeping under the stars.”

“The horse?” Sif asked. “Doesn’t she have a name?”

Thor shrugged. “I do not know it.”

“Well shouldn’t it in the very least be ‘ _my_ horse?’”

“She is not my horse. She is her own being and my companion until such time that she chooses not to be.”

“So, does that mean that you and the horse . . .” Fandral began, before Thor’s hammer conked him on the head.


	5. An Incident on Misheim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor fails at diplomacy.

Thor smiled. He had a diplomatic mission to Misheim for the next two days. Thor cared little about the treaty that allowed Asgard to mine for minerals in Misheim’s deep seas and he cared even less about the prince and princess who seemed to be fighting over who would be allowed to lay with him. They were both attractive, with glowing brown skin and bright blue eyes. Thor would be happy to lay with either if their petty jealousies did not make them unattractive to him.

No, what made Thor happy was the fact that he and the horse would be able to run down Misheim’s broad white beaches next to its emerald green sea with no council and no worried friends and no mother and father to tell Thor exactly how he wasn’t allowed to live his life.

Thor gave the horse her apple, which she ate eagerly. “Watch it,” Thor laughed. “you’re starting to get a little thick in the middle.”

The horse tried to nip him, but Thor gave her another apple anyway. 

The bifrost site was in the south of the central island on Misheim, far from the Capital. They arrived alone, making Thor grin and whoop and pull off his ceremonial armor to run straight into the brilliant green sea without a stitch on him. He was sure that the horse did not care. Instead, she stood patiently on the shore, watching him with those intelligent eyes.

He had no idea how old she was, but the horse often looked at him the way Loki did when he thought Thor was not acting his age or stature. He expected a similar look, but instead the horse tossed its white mane, looking happy.

Thor swam out until the horse was nothing more than a nearly invisible white speck on the white beach, diving under to watch the strange sea creatures of this world dart in and out of the seagrass that stretched to the horizon. Thor followed a creature in a great pearlescent shell that slapped its many tentacle-limbs together to propel itself. There were great big creatures as well. They looked like underwater oxen, complete with horns, and fed lazily on the seagrass. They ignored Thor as he swam among them. 

Thor was so lost in the majesty of this place that he barely noticed the powerful swipes of the great white legs that approached. Thor laughed when he saw the horse, magically divested of her saddle, swimming along beside him.

“Worried you, hey?” Thor asked, petting her nose.

She neighed. 

“Oh, I suppose you were only hot?” he laughed. “Maybe lonely?”

The horse swam away from him, investigating the large underwater herbivores on her own. They swam playfully for a while, before Thor noticed that the grasseaters had moved away. Suddenly the horse was nudging him fiercely towards the shore.

“Stop that!” he snapped. “I’ll go in when I want to.”

But the horse was insistent and when he next ducked his head underwater, Thor noted that he could not see as far into the distance before the water seemed to fade into a wall of blue. Except it looked almost black. Thor’s heart began to race. He would charge into a crowd of a hundred enemies with nothing but his hammer for protection, but battle was familiar as a well-worn glove. This . . . Thor had no idea what this was.

Thor immediately took off for the shore, his strong arms and legs churning the water as he fled. He was more than halfway there when he realized that unlike her fleet-footed dash on land, the horse did not outpace him. In fact, she was nowhere to be found. Thor pulled his head out of the water, searching for the white in the sea of blue. The blackness could be seen on top of the water now, and it was approaching her. 

A pang shot through Thor’s chest. She had warned him about the danger of whatever-it-was, but she did not have time to escape herself. Thor knew that if he swam, he would not reach her in time. He gasped in panic momentarily, but then remembered Mjolnir. He raised his hand and called to it. Heartbeats later it was in his hand. He used its momentum to drag him through the water to where the horse was paddling, panicked. The blackness was almost upon them now and there was no way for Thor to hold onto the large horse and let Mjolnir pull them to safety. Still, he urged the horse forwards, staring down the inky blackness and wondering what it contained. 

Was it a chemical that would burn their skin? Was it a school of fish so large that it blocked out the light? Or maybe one of those tides of algae? They moved fast, but the blackness moved faster. They had almost reached the shelf where the horse, if not Thor would be able to stand, when something shot out of the darkness. It was a blur of red, as wide as Thor was tall and he had smashed it with Mjolnir before his mind had time to register that it was a tentacle - the tentacle of an undoubtedly gargantuan sea-beast.

The blackness seemed to rumble with the creature’s disquiet when Thor and the horse swam on. The horse found its footing in the seagrass the same moment another tentacle shot out, only to be hit away by the hammer. Thor pulled his head above water and was surprised to see that a few of the tentacles were above the surface now. Thor had no idea how many tentacles the creature actually had, only that they were attacking from all sides now. Thor keep one hand in the horse’s mane to let her pull him while the other wielded Mjolnir.

Swinging the hammer underwater was inefficient and left a trail of bubbles that further masked his visibility. This wasn’t working. Instead, Thor stood up on the horse’s back, swinging the hammer hard enough to shoot him into the sky and down into the blackness where the tentacles seemed to originate. For one heart stopping moment, Thor was blind, underwater, facing a beast he could not see, but then Mjolnir connected with something huge and soft and the water vibrated with the creature’s pain. A tentacle came at him, knocking the air from his lungs and for a moment Thor thought he might be drowning. But he held out a hand and grabbed on to the next tentacle that came for him. Letting it lift him out of the water when it tried to shake him off. In the frenzy, Thor could just see that the horse had made it out of the water and was neighing and kicking up into the sand frantically, distressed about him.

With the one being he cared about out of the water, Thor summoned a lightning bolt and the monster was no more.

Thor was covered in ink and monster guts when he finally landed on the shore. The horse’s formally glowing white coat had been stained a mottled grey. Thor reached out to his companion, burying his face in her neck and running his fingers through her tangled, wet mane.

Then there was nothing to do but laugh and laugh until he had no more in him. 

“I suppose you’re enjoying this peaceful diplomatic mission?”

The horse did not deign to respond. 

Instead, they made their way along the coast until they found a small stream, which they followed inland until it became a series of pools at the base of a small waterfall. After seeing what was in the ocean, Thor was a little apprehensive of the stream. But the water was clear and the horse placed herself under the waterfall, letting it pound the ink out of her coat.

Thor laughed. “You are fastidious for a horse.” But he joined her.

Thor left his armor off so he could dry under the sun, walking naked down the beach next to the horse.

***

As it turned out, the beast that Thor had killed was worshiped by the people of Misheim as a kind of storage vessel for all the evil in the world. To kill one was to release the evil it stored and it was considered more noble to be devoured than to harm it. Thor had to offer a good number of Idun’s apples in order to make up for the diplomatic incident. Frigga was not pleased.

“You never bother to learn anything about a place that doesn’t have to do with battle!” Frigga shouted. 

“I am friendly with the ambassadors!” Thor protested. “I was listening to their every word and no one mentioned that I should refrain from killing any giant sea monsters that would attack me.”

“You don’t learn about the dangers of a place from the ambassadors who live there and are likely to take such dangers for granted. You learn from reading a book!”

“I read.”

Frigga looked skeptical. “Your father is going to be very disappointed.” She gestured to where Odin still slept, shrouded in gold.

“Let him be. I was attacked and I defended myself. Was I supposed to allow it to kill us?”

Frigga sighed, taking Thor’s hand. “I know you are young yet, but a moral decision can become immoral if one does not take the proper steps to avoid making it altogether. You cannot go smashing your way through the world with that cursed hammer simply because you cannot be bothered to think before you act.”

“Mjolnir is not cursed.”

“No, not literally. But it allows you the power to rely on your strength when you should be using your wits. Loki would never have gotten himself in such a situation.”

“No, Loki would have goaded me into that ocean so he could watch a giant sea monster try to eat me and the prince and princess turn on me.”

Frigga could not argue. In fact she looked sad that she had reminded herself of Loki’s absence. While Thor alternated between missing his brother, being happy Loki was at least being spared the monotony of court, and hating him for abandoning Thor to this, their mother had become increasingly upset. Thor tried to tell the horse that she should ask Loki to return for their mother’s sake, but Thor could never tell if the baleful look in her eyes was because she was no more capable of communicating with Loki than Thor or because Loki simply refused to return.

“Thor, my son, you are not ready for the throne and neither is your brother. I wish you could be more analytical and he could be more straightforward, but neither of you seems inclined to change. You disappointed me today.”

Her words felt like a stab to the gut, but they also made him angry. He didn’t ask for these responsibilities and his parents had hardly prepared him. They’d let the brothers be children and soldiers and mages instead of telling them useful things like the need to research a planet’s wildlife before a diplomatic mission. When Thor was busy learning to be a warrior with his friends, they could have told him then that he should be a little more like his brother. Or they should have just decided to make Loki king and punished the mischief out of him. 

“I’m sorry, mother,” Thor replied, before slamming out the door from Odin’s chambers and towards the stables.

He’d saved their lives. The horse would understand.


	6. Understanding and the Lack Thereof

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor finally finds out that the horse is pregnant, Tyr gives him a lesson in kingship, and Thor consults the horse about his treatment of his brother.

After his disappointing turn at diplomacy, Frigga began supplementing boring meetings and audiences with boring lessons on how to attend to boring meetings and audiences. She would analyze Thor’s decisions and point out all of his mistakes. It was demoralizing to say the least and even though Thor listened, he didn’t feel inclined to change his behavior. A part of him was sure that he didn’t _need_ to change.

The only highlights of his days were riding and then one day that too came to an end.

The horse was waiting for him as always, but when he tried to put the saddle on her she would shake it off. Even after he managed to get it on with her bridal tied to the post, it just magically disappeared and reappeared on its rack. 

And when he tried to climb on bareback, the horse actually bit him. It wasn’t hard enough to break skin, but it was definitely a bite, not a nibble or a nip.

Thor had given up for the night, ready to head back to the castle when the horse followed him step for step. 

“What? You don’t want to go for a ride, so I’m going to sleep.”

The horse shook her head and nudged him away from the path to the palace and towards the woods. They walked together to a nearby field and slept under an apple tree.

Thor felt a little embarrassed worrying about the mercurial moods of a magic horse, but even though he hoped that the horse was just moody, he feared she might be sick. He resolved to ask one of the stable hands about it the next day.

“Moody!” the stable hand laughed. “Well, they’re not like Aesir women in a similar state, but sure a foaling mare can be moody.”

“Foaling?”

“You know, pregnant. You should be able to safely ride her for another moon, but if she doesn’t want you to, maybe it’s best leave her alone.”

Thor’s jaw dropped. He knew that the horse was female, but he had no idea she was pregnant. Thor managed to find a book on the subject and realized that the mare had probably been so since he’d known her, because in horses a pregnancy lasted 11 moons.

That night, he brought her a pail full of apples in apology, pressing at her noticeably taut belly to see if he could feel the foal shift within.

***

Thor was horrible at court affairs. After the diplomatic incident with Misheim, things deteriorated even further. Every single one of the boundary settlements that Thor negotiated fell apart in a matter of weeks, one of them ending in a rather spectacular fistfight that knocked the head off one of his mother’s favorite statutes. Thor didn’t understand the economics of trade with Hellheir or how sending flowers was supposed to quell unrest with the religious sects in the South. He retreated to the War Council, outside of his mother’s watchful eye. But Tyr hardly allowed Thor more control after he didn’t plan rationing for the Jotenheim sentries correctly and they ended up having to ask King Laufey to borrow extra rations. The only thing that Thor could provide useful input on was training exercises for the warriors.

“How does father do it all?” Thor asked Tyr after a particularly harsh strategy meeting in which two of the generals had lectured Thor about using intelligence gathering to avoid rather than incite war. 

“You look like you could use a drink,” Tyr laughed, pulling a sheepskin out from a hidden panel in the War Council’s chambers. 

Thor drank from it heartily.

“The task of kingship is not an easy one,” Tyr admitted. “Your father shielded you boys too much from the reality of it out of love and the desire for you to have the freedoms afforded to most children. Your brother has long been aware of the nature of the kingship, which I suspect is why he takes such care to prove himself unworthy of it at every opportunity.”

Thor had begun to suspect as much, of course, but Tyr was the only other person that seemed aware of it. Everyone else just saw Loki’s tricks as immature - the result of a spoiled youth. “But you think he would make a good king?”

Tyr sighed. “I think your brother has the skills to be a great king, yes. But there is a sickness in him that I’m not sure can be cured.”

“What do you mean?” Thor vibrated with suppressed anger. He knew that Tyr did not harbor ill will towards Loki; in fact he’d been nothing but patient with the smaller, frailer of the two siblings in training. Still, Thor’s instinct toward Loki would always be to protect. 

“Your brother is not a typical Aesir.”

Thor held his breath. He’d always known this. They were like night and day and even though their mother tried to say that it made them perfect complements, Thor always feared for Loki. Without even meaning to, Thor had always excelled at everything valued in the realm and by virtue of being different, Loki had always been everything mistrusted and looked down upon. Thor never faulted his brother for doing what he loved, but he had often teased him for his strange habits.

“What we look up to is strength, prowess in battle, the confidence to command, the desire to enjoy rich food and good mead. But in order for our society to be rich and to be orderly, the softer arts are necessary: diplomacy rather than unwinnable wars, peace among hot tempered boisterous men, the materials to maintain our infrastructure and the organization to assure such things run smoothly. It is glory that keeps our spirits high, admiration that keeps the loyalty of the citizenry, and victory in necessary battles that has led us to dominate the realms, but it is cunning that chooses the battles we can win and keeps our warriors supplied, that spins great tales of our glory and keeps the citizenry from fighting amongst itself.”

Thor took another deep drink, collapsing into the ceremonial chair he occupied during the council - higher than everyone else, but ultimately meaningless when it came to earning their respect. “I’m not good at cunning, am I?”

Tyr laughed, a sad, regretful laugh. “No, my boy, you are not. But ultimately, you do not need to be. It is a rare king that can do it all. You are beloved of your people and inspire admiration with little effort. You are the personification of glory and you are the greatest warrior I have ever known.”

Thor smiled, clasping Tyr’s hand. “Thank you, training master,” he replied, recalling the days of youth when Tyr had been his beloved trainer. “That means a great deal to me.”

Tyr smiled, reminding Thor of days long past when he and Sif would sit in Tyr’s lap listening to tales of battles long past with rapt attention.

“But those are only the qualities of a good figurehead, not a good ruler. In order for you to be a great king, you must know your limits. You must know and appreciate that there are hundreds of people in the palace, your brother included, with more sense than you when it comes to the business of ruling. You must trust those people and you must be humble before them, because in these matters they know much better than you.”

Thor’s ego kicked and screamed. It argued that Thor could learn these things in time, that he could be as good a ruler as his father was - attending to matters of court and battle with equal skill. 

Tyr chuckled. “I see that your father has fooled even you. Odin is a magnificent warrior and he is wise, but in his youth he had much help in ruling the kingdom and he made many mistakes. We fought a deadly, costly war against Jotunheim when you were just a babe. It was unavoidable, but probably could have been ended earlier if he had not been so set on revenge. Before he married your mother, many of Odin’s diplomatic missions ended as your last visit to Misheim. Odin is still righteous, too zealous in punishment2, often unsympathetic to the emotional turmoil of others, and too quick to make decisions on the behalf of those he considers beneath him. He is not a perfect king.”

Tyr’s words were treason. A year ago, before Thor had been forced to take on more kingly duties, he would have drawn his hammer and undoubtedly come to blows. But now he understood the soft admiration in Tyr’s eyes and felt the magic of loyalty that still bound Tyr to his father. 

“There’s no such thing as a perfect king, Thor. The business of ruling is too vast for one man alone. No, each king must be the best he can be and that means knowing his own strengths and weaknesses and changing his rule accordingly.”

Thor could understand that. “What does that mean for me?”

“First, it means that you must admit your faults.”

Thor considered this for a long moment. He was aware he had faults, of course, but he had honestly never sat down and thought about them and no one other than Loki and occasionally his parents ever bothered to tell him about them. “I admit that I am not skilled at diplomacy and I am horrible at Royal Audience.”

Tyr smiled encouragingly. Thor was meant to continue.

“I think I could learn to lead the Warrior’s Council and its administrative issues. I fight as an individual - strategy does not come easily. As for the other issues of trade and administration, I am at a great loss.”

Tyr nodded. “Your father also struggles with issues of infrastructure. He has hired the best advisors. You need only know enough to restrain them from being overzealous. For diplomacy, Odin relies on Frigga, but I think you just need a few good advisors and you will excell. You are naturally far more likeable than your father and more patient as well, though I suppose looking for a spouse with good diplomatic skills would be helpful.”

“Sif is out of the question, then,” Thor half-joked. He doubted Sif would consent to marry him anyway.

“True. But I think you will find her an excellent addition to the Warrior’s Council when the time comes. Now, let’s see . . . you will have to blatantly restructure how royal audience is held, because I don’t know that you will ever be skilled at it. As for strategy, you do have a council full of advisors, missing only the kingdom’s best tactician.”

Thor frowned. “If there is a greater tactician, why is he not an advisor to the king?”

Tyr shook his head. “Because your father would never take his advice.”

“Give me his name and he shall sit on the council when my father is not present.”

“Alas, that is not possible at the moment, but it does bring me to the second, and possibly most important thing you must do in order to be a great king.”

“What is it?” Thor demanded eagerly. “Tell me and it shall be done.”

“You must find and make reparations with your brother.”

“Loki and I work well together. He is not absent because of me.”

“Oh, Thor,” Tyr sighed. “You have always been blind to it, perhaps willfully so.”

“Blind to what?”

“Loki’s sickness. He has always been a sensitive boy, one who loves deeply and craves love in return. He doubts his own worth and resorts to trickery in an attempt to claim what he rightfully deserves, rather than demanding it as his due. It has been festering in him since you were boys.”

“I love my brother,” Thor protested. “He has never had cause to doubt that.”

“You love your brother, but do you respect him? Do you treat him as your equal? Are you proud of him when he shows his skill? Do you protect him from being unfavorably compared to you? Do you shield him from your father’s favoritism? Do you appreciate all he does for you?”

Thor wished he could answer all the questions in the affirmative, but he could not, in good conscience. “I praise him and I protect him from harm.”

“Is that enough, do you think?” Tyr asked. “Is it enough to compensate for how they call him liesmith? How you and others call his powerful magic mere tricks? How you pursue your glory at the expense of his more shadowy contributions? Do you think it could ever make up for the fact that Odin has always favored you? Loki tries very hard to be accepted and to compensate for his lack of natural strength in battle with his wits and his magic. He struggles just to be your equal. He makes great sacrifices only for your father to turn to you instead. Right now, these hurts manifest in him as insecurity. Right now he deals with them by pretending he is less than he is - by resorting to mischief instead of trying when he knows that he cannot compete. But one day it will be more than mischief and one day insecurity will transform into resentment and when that day comes, you will find yourself with an enemy who is not stronger than you, but who knows desperation and has the wits to transform that desperation into horrible advantage.”

“Loki would never,” Thor swore, but it came out more a plea. He plead that it would not be true. “Loki is my brother. He loves me.”

“And he is all the more dangerous for it. He loves you enough to hang his soul on your acceptance and on your praise. Your father is not wise enough to realize it, but I hope you will understand how well love turns to hate.”

Thor nodded. He’d received the slap of enough maidens to know that much. “I do appreciate him. And I would have him at my side, on the War Council and in all things.”

“Perhaps the king’s brother is royal enough for royal audience?” Tyr raised an eyebrow in joking question.

“That would be an elegant solution,” Thor agreed.

***

“Good evening, horse,” Thor smiled, still pleasantly warm from the wineskin he and Tyr had finished. “How was your day?”

The horse looked down at her rapidly expanding belly unhappily, making Thor laugh as he petted her. He ran a hand down her side, feeling the rough kick of the foal. “Your little one kicks a lot,” he remarked. “He or she will be strong.”

The horse nuzzled him.

“I brought you a barberry pie,” Thor smiled, unwrapping the cloth from around his gift. “Actually, I brought it for us to share,” he amended, grabbing himself a slice before the horse could devour it. 

The horse made quick work of the rest, staining the area around her mouth purple. 

Thor laughed at her, using the cloth to clean her up as best he could. “I would feel rude laughing at a pregnant woman, but you are a horse.”

She tried to nip him anyway, but Thor danced easily out of her range. The library had said that during the last three moons of gestation the foal grew rapidly, nearly 60% of its growth. Thor could attest to that. The once sleek and powerful mare seemed bloated, especially from the front, where she looked more like a horse with a large fur-colored wheel around her middle. She had one moon left before the foal would be born and Thor both awaited it and dreaded it.

Thor walked out of the stables, with the horse ambling next to him. They walked towards the palace this time, where they would sleep in the gardens. Once Thor had convinced his mother that the horse would not eat her favorite flowers, they were allowed to stay there at night. 

“Tell me something,” Thor commanded, once the horse had uneasily lowered herself beneath the great ash tree that he and Loki had planted as a seedling when they were boys. It now dominated the ‘Prince’s’ section of the garden. “When your foal is born, do you intend to leave me?”

The horse looked at Thor for a long time, but did not reply. Eventually, she nudged him with her nose, prompting him to pet and massage her muscles, no doubt aching from the pregnancy.

“I wish you wouldn’t leave,” he said. “But if you must,” he added. “Please at least wait for my brother’s return.”

The horse nuzzled her assent, before relaxing back into Thor’s petting. 

“I know you have never seen me with Loki,” Thor continued. “Although you do know him. Tyr and I talked today and he said that I must make reparations with my brother and named the thousand ways that I have unknowingly been harming him.”

The horse was staring at Thor now, her gaze fixed and intent even though the angle must be uncomfortable for her neck. Thor moved obligingly so that she’d be able to watch him. 

“Until today I saw our relationship a certain way. I thought of myself as the hero and Loki as my trusted squire. I saw myself as his protector, too. And I saw the bond between us a deep and unbreakable. We teased each other and we fought, competed for our father’s attention and sometimes we hurt each other, as brothers do. But I have always felt blessed to have Loki at my side. After what Tyr said, I doubt whether he feels the same. Have I perpetrated some great hurt upon him?” Thor felt tears welling in his eyes. “Am I the reason he has not returned?”

The horse shook her head vigorously, but Thor did not know if he could believe her.

“Father was murderous. He threatened his own son with unspeakable punishments and all over a bad contract with the wallbuilder. I should have stood up for him. I should have stopped whatever horrible thing he had to do for our father’s approval, the thing that keeps him away still. I should have protected him!”

Thor was surprised to feel the nip to his arm, hard enough to draw blood. He was even more surprised when the horse struggled to her feet, walking over to the part of the garden that Loki reserved for his magical herbs. They were a little overgrown, but Thor had been afraid to prune them for fear that he might do something wrong and make them useless for Loki’s spells. The horse had eaten a few of them before, probably to help her pregnancy. Thor waited for her to do the same, but instead she stomped her foot agitatedly, gesturing with her head over to the garden.

“Do you want me to pick something for you?”

She shook her head violently, now gesturing to the stone wall around the gardens and then to her pregnant belly.

“Do you want to leave the gardens?”

She neighed, looking even more agitated. Her front hoof dragged in the grass, marking the green grass down to the mud with a straight line.

“Okay, that’s enough,” Thor said. “I’ll be in a world of trouble if the gardeners tell mother that you have made markings in her garden.”

The horse had that look that said that even as a mere horse she was smarter than he was, but Thor ignored it, leading her back towards the stables where they could sleep in the warm hay for the night.


	7. The Thraberbeast and the Prince

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor escorts a foreign prince on a hunt. The horse extracts him from the ensuing mess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that this part contains non-graphic and brief Thor/OMC.

Due to Thor’s utter failure in most matters of court, his mother had him escorting Prince Seupu of Alfheim around the palace grounds while she negotiated with his father. The prince was in much the same situation as Thor - not yet on the throne, but being painstakingly groomed for the role. He was also an incredibly handsome man. He had long silky black hair that he kept tied in a braid, pale skin, and glowing golden eyes. He was as tall and broad as Thor himself and rumored to be an excellent warrior and hunter.

After the two of them teamed up to absolutely dominate Sif and the warriors three at sparring, the prince pulled Thor aside, asking in his low seductive rumble, “I prefer to bathe in natural waters and I hear from your mother that riding is a passion. Perhaps you could lead me to a waterfall where we could bathe, maybe camp under the stars?”

Thor smiled. None of his friends understood this newfound passion of Thor’s, but Seupu seemed to get it. 

“My horse is currently foaling,” Thor replied, “but we can borrow two of the palace horses and ride out. Shall I retrieve some supplies?”

Seupu shook his head, a wicked grin on his lips. “I have brought some bread and jams, as well as samples of the rich meads of my lands and we are both skilled hunters.”

“And your hunting clothes?” Thor asked, as they were both decked out in their battle armor. 

“I prefer to ride in just my tunic. We should retrieve your gear, if you wish it.”

Not to be outdone, Thor smiled. “No, I believe that I, too, have everything that I need.”

So they made their way towards the stables, Seupu making his intentions clear as he gently teased Thor about their sparring session and bemoaned the training period before he would finally become king, all the while touching Thor with a casual possessiveness that Thor found more amusing than endearing. Still, there was no arguing that Seupu was a fine man and someone who Thor would not object to having in his bed, even if they would have to vie for dominance.

Along the path, Thor picked barberries, feeding some to Seupu, who ate them flirtatiously out of Thor’s hand and saving another handful for the horse.

As they entered the stables, Seupu had his arm around Thor’s shoulders and Thor wondered if they’d even make it to the waterfall he had in mind before Seupu made his move.

Thor went automatically to the horse’s stable, petting her nose and offering her the barberries. 

“She is rather spectacularly in foal,” Seupu remarked, eyeing her. “But a beautiful animal. What kind of stallion did you breed her with?”

Thor shrugged. “I do not know. I found her wild recently after she was mated.”

“May I?” Seupu asked, his hand reaching out for the horse’s belly. She tried to move away from him, but Thor fixed her with a glare until she submitted.

“The foal has a strong kick!” Seupu exclaimed. “Remarkably strong. Tell me, would you be interested in a selling it or including it as part of the terms of trade when it is born?”

Thor grabbed the horse’s mane before she could bite the prince. 

“I had planned to give it to my father as a gift,” Thor lied.

Seupu shrugged. “Too bad. I have a bit of a hobby horsebreeding and we are always looking for new, strong stock for our royal stables. If you come across any other unique animals that you are willing to trade, let me know.”

The horse followed Thor and Seupu as they made their way through the stalls, crowding Thor so much that he had to push her off on more than one occasion. 

“I’m sorry you have to stay here,” Thor told her, “but the foal should arrive any day now and you can’t be out in the woods with us.”

The horse nipped him, much to Seupu’s amusement. She didn’t look happy when they selected two large, black steeds. They were Odin’s personal horses, but he did not mind if Thor borrowed them while he was in the Odinsleep. The horse kept trying to block them from leaving the stable, nipping at Thor and whinnying. She almost succeeded in tripping Seupu, but his fast reflexes allowed him to dodge her. She even tried to follow them into the woods, but in her condition, she simply could not keep up.

“Be a good mother. Now is not the time for adventure!” Thor shouted at her as they galloped away.

Thor’s heart ached, leaving her. He felt as though he was betraying some special thing they shared between them to go riding out into their woods to look at their stars and lay with a foreign prince instead of sleep beside her. But then Thor chided himself for his ridiculousness. She was a horse, not his lover. And thanks to her Thor hadn’t bedded anyone in moons. Besides, he was wary of causing another diplomatic incident and incurring his mother’s wrath.

They did not ride far into the woods. Despite the fact that Seupu was a skilled huntsman and an excellent rider, Thor did not feel comfortable straying too far from the city with him, made wary by the horse’s anxiety. They arrived at the water and gathered materials for a fire, resolving to bathe after they had caught themselves some game for dinner. Seupu wanted to hunt thraberbeasts, which needed to be cooked soon after capture and whose blood stained clothing horribly. Thor was largely convinced that Seupu only decided such because he wanted to hunt without his clothes.

As they stripped their clothing down, Thor couldn’t help but admire the long lines of Seupu’s torso and his ample muscles. He was not as defined as Thor, but somehow seemed more intimidating for it, like his muscles were the result of survival and desperate fighting and not training. Seupu tied a small piece of leather around his waist to protect his manhood, which Thor saw was quite impressive. Seupu took only a long dagger with him. He meant to hunt traditionally.

When Thor shed his own clothes, Seupu watched with undisguised appreciation, before pressing a chaste kiss to Thor’s lips and a dagger to his palm. It was an elegant one - perfectly balanced and made of the Skystone that grew on Seupu’s world (part of the trade deal their parents were discussing). Skystone was a white moss that hardened like stone when it grew together. It started as a cobweb-like mist, then solidified into messes of gnarled white fibers that twisted together like a bird’s nest, until finally, after a hundred years of strengthening, it became a white stone with twisted detail like marble, capable of being sharpened better and more durably than any metal and light like air. 

The knife had runes carved into the hilt - Thor recognized his family name and his own, entwined with those of Seupu’s house. On the blade, magic had written the inscriptions to cut through any spell into the patterns of the stone itself. Such a process required more than 50 years and the hands of the most skilled artisan to arrange the fibers of the developing moss so they would solidify into the correct rune. It was powerful magic woven without the aid of a sorcerer and incredibly valuable. 

“A gift to aid the relations between our peoples,” Seupu said, with a wink. “For you to keep.”

Thor pulled him back and kissed him again, deeply, hungrily this time - warrior to warrior. Seupu tasted sweet, like jiberries and herbs. Thor felt himself hardening as he ground against his fellow prince, pulling him down to the soft mulch of the forest floor. Seupu laughed, pushing Thor away. “Not yet, my prince,” he murmured against Thor’s lips. “Let us find dinner first and then I will be happy to continue this.”

Thor wanted to argue, already feeling addicted to the rich taste on Seupu’s lips and the sweet slide of his muscular body against Thor’s own. But Seupu had a point - if they were to catch a thraberbeasts, it was best to do it with the sun high in the sky. It was already mid-afternoon and the longer they waited, the more difficult it would be

The thraberbeasts were large and hairy, resembling a boar with a long prehensile snout and razor-sharp tusks they used for digging into the roots of trees for the grubs that resided there. Like unicorns, they had some magic in them, and were able to make themselves invisible. The forest was full of these creatures that no one could see. 

Seupu and Thor collected the herbs for a revelatory spell and Thor couldn’t help but remember a time long ago, when Loki led Thor and Volstagg through the forest, eager to show them the revealing spell that would let them catch their first thraberbeast long before the ceremony of the first hunt. Thor and Volstagg had been hopeless at collecting the proper herbs, and Loki rejected many before they caught on. Thor smiled, remembering a young Loki perched over a pile of herbs, kneeling inelegantly in the mulch and biting his lip in concentration (a habit he had long since trained himself out of). It was one of the first spells that Loki had learned, and like most of their childhood adventures, ended in disaster. Volstagg ended up with a thraberbeast tusk embedded in his buttocks and Thor earned himself his first broken arm. It was also the first time they had discovered Loki’s innate ability to transport himself and Tyr had needed to climb a tree to carry him down from where he’d magicked himself out of fear.

Thor later proved himself by catching a thraberbeast as his challenge on his first hunting day and by now, knew the spell by heart. He let his hands linger as he took the herbs from Seupu, arranging them carefully and tying them with the thick strands of hair from a thraberbeast tail that were the difficult ingredient in the spell. When Thor had asked Loki how the first thraberbeast was caught without the tail hairs of a thraberbeast to make the spell, Loki had explained that a truly powerful mage could see the beasts without a spell. Thor wondered if Loki could see them now. 

Thor said the incantation and lit the bundle of herbs on fire. The smoke would reveal any beast it came into contact with, though its form would still be no more than a shimmer, even in bright sunlight. The enchanted knives that Seupu had provided would fully reveal the beasts, cutting through their spells as well as their skin. Seupu must have been set on hunting these particular beasts to have brought both the hair and the special knives for this purpose. Not that Thor blamed him. After Frigga’s admonition, Thor had read the diplomatic dossier on Seupu’s world, so he knew that thraberbeasts were not found there. Their meat was rich and their blood served as an aphrodisiac. It was well worth the effort of catching one, so it made sense that Seupu would want to.

Thor was used to hunting thraberbeasts with Volstagg, who loved thraberbeast stew more than anything. Normally, they’d rigg a clearing with nets and try to herd the scared beasts into it before killing them. It was less of a challenge, but produced more meat, which was Volstagg’s priority. 

Instead, Thor and Seupu proceeded with the traditional hunt - the object was to jump on the back of the beast and slit its throat with a knife while trying not to get stabbed by its tusks. They worked well together, unspokenly moving as one with a coordination which had taken centuries for Thor and his friends to cultivate. Thor wafted the smoke over the area and Seupu moved to block obvious escape routes as they stalked quietly through the underbrush. 

The sun was close to setting when Thor finally spotted the shimmering outline of a beast in the smoke. It was huge, coming up to Thor’s waist and with the giant tusks of a mature male. The beasts could feel the smoke pulling at their magic, so there was no point in stealth. Thor gave a warning cry, charging towards the beast and dodging the panicked swipes of its massive tusks. Before Thor could get a shot in with his knife, Seupu had jumped on its back, valiantly holding on as it tried to buck him off. It jostled Seupu such that his knife slipped, accidentally slashing Thor’s palm when he tried to grab hold of the beast to assist.

Thor ignored the pain and used his own knife to cut where he assumed the beast’s back leg to be. After severing the tendon, it would be unable to escape. The runes in the knife did their work, undoing the invisibility spell around the beast and exposing it. Once the creature was visible, Seupu had no trouble slitting its throat and riding its body to the ground.

Thor noticed belatedly that Seupu had a similar cut to Thor’s on his palm, though Thor had no idea if it was from a knife or one of the beast’s sharp tusks. They made quick work of cutting the beast open and removing its internal organs in order to prevent contamination of the flesh. Seupu sliced with bold, clean strokes that spoke to his skill in hunting and in battle. They were both covered in the deep red blood of the beast, practically naked. Thor could not help his arousal at Seupu’s silent _competence_. Thor had bedded many men and women, ordinarily for their looks or because he felt inclined on that particular day, but there was something about Seupu - an indefinable pull that transcended the mere matter of the flesh.

Perhaps Loki had been right when he told Thor that coupling could be made magical by the things in the soul that bound two people together. Then again, Loki could just have been having Thor on in order to make him feel like an inadequate lover. Once again, Thor resented his brother’s proclivity to lie.

After they finished their clean up, Thor hoisted the beast onto his back to carry back to the campsite. Seupu could not keep his hands to himself, continuously stroking Thor’s back or gripping his waist under the guise of helping him reposition his burden or guide him down a particular path back towards their camp. Thor actually appreciated the latter, as he was not the best tracker and normally relied on Loki or Fandral to remember the path. 

When they had finally returned to camp, Seupu used a spell in order to start a fire with the materials they had gathered earlier and Thor quickly sliced up the meat for cooking. They ate their dinner in silence and set the rest of the meat to smoke overnight. They were covered in both blood and ash when they were done, like a strange tattoo covering their skins.

Thor didn’t hesitate a moment after finishing his dinner, arousal simmering within him. He practically leaped onto his fellow prince, adding dirt to the mix of substances smearing their skin. The touch was electric and their coupling animalistic. Their blood mingled where they bit each other in harsh kisses and through the cuts on their palms as they clasped their hands together in the dirt. 

Seupu used a spell to slick himself and Thor could feel the magic pull deep within him when he entered his companion. Thor pounded in hard and they both reached completion quickly.

“That was amazing,” Thor murmured, collapsing into his companion. 

In the morning, they woke dirty and disheveled, washing themselves in the waterfall and coupling again in the rough waters below. Seupu’s long black hair felt smooth and wonderful under the water and he looked more delicate somehow. In fact, with his golden eyes closed, he looked quite a bit like Loki.

They packed the rest of the meat onto their saddles and road back in comfortable silence, contemplative.

It was only when they reached the farmost pasture and civilization that Seupu spoke up. “Do you think we might one day unite our kingdoms?” Seupu asked.

“We already have a formidable alliance,” Thor replied. “But if, once you are king, you wish to annex your kingdom to Asgard, I would not object.”

Seupu laughed. “You are as untrained in political subtlety as my father warned me. I did not mean that we should submit ourselves to you, but truly unite. Through a marriage.”

Thor blanched. He had greatly enjoyed his time with the prince and looked forward to keeping him as a friend and a lover, but was it not too early for Thor to consider tying himself down that way? And based on the great disaster of this Odinsleep, Thor doubted that his father would abdicate anytime soon. 

“I hadn’t thought of it,” Thor admitted. “Perhaps one day.”

“Perhaps sooner than you think,” Seupu murmured, one hand going to his belly.

“Seupu, what have you done?”

Seupu shrugged. “I have Frost Giant lineage. But I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about. It is very difficult for men of mixed blood to conceive and I am only 1/16 Jotun.”

Except it had been a full moon and they had mingled their blood and Seupu didn’t seem at all properly concerned about the risk of a child.

Thor did the only thing he could think of - he galloped off, leaving Seupu calling after him. 

***

“You were right,” Thor told the horse, much later after he’d stopped his panicked riding and turned back towards the palace. “I have made a grave mistake.”

The horse turned away from him, pouting. 

“I know, you saved me from the snake and from the sea creature. I should have trusted you to save me from a prince with kingly ambitions as well. But honestly, you’re a horse, what should you know about royal politics?”

The horse nudged at her own belly.

“You are pregnant so you think you can divine when another wants to get pregnant?”

The horse neighed and then sniffed at Thor dramatically.

“You smelled it on him?” Thor asked. He doubted that even a magical horse could smell machinations to get with child. But there had been something. Thor thought back to the sweet intoxicating flavor of Seupu’s kiss. It had been noticeably herbal - like a potion. And it had been a full moon. And there was a reason that despite the aphrodisiac properties, Fandral never once asked Thor and Volstagg for the thraberbeast’s blood. Thor’s eyes widened. They were all fertility enhancers.

“Horse, I have committed an even bigger mistake than I originally thought.”

The horse did not look surprised.

“I coupled with the crown prince of a powerful ally in the twilight of a full moon, covered in thraberbeast blood, while our blood mingled through cuts on our hands, and he was most likely taking a fertility potion. If he gets with child, I will have to marry him rather than dishonor him with a bastard.”

The horse looked expectant. Thor pondered the situation again, remembering the few things that Loki had taught him about spell potency. “And it was next to rushing water.” Loki had once said that rushing water amplified the power of spells.

The horse snorted, probably in disgust. She stared at Thor a long time. Thor hoped that she was considering calling Loki back. Loki knew politics and he’d tricked enough princesses and princes. He’d know what to do.

Finally, the horse walked over and nudged Thor in the direction of the palace and eventually the palace gardens. Thor was too anxious to sleep, but the horse did not lead him to the ash tree, but rather to Loki’s garden of spell ingredients. She looked at Thor expectantly.

He looked back at her, equally expectant. Surely she did not expect him to understand for himself.

Resignedly, the horse nudged Thor’s hands towards one plant, then another, then another.

“If you want me to make a potion, you will have to find the spell book and locate the page. The thraberbeast disillusionment spell is one of the only ones I know.”

The horse gave him her ‘I can’t believe you’re this stupid look’ again before nudging his hands towards the final herb. Thor looked down at what she had selected, feeling revelation at the outskirts of his consciousness. He knew these ingredients. He’d seen Loki collect them a hundred times before.

“You are brilliant, horse!” Thor exclaimed. “You must have seen my brother gather these as well. They are for the anti-conception tea that he drinks after he has bedded a man!” 

The horse appeared less-than-thrilled by Thor’s praise, but Thor hugged her anyway. 

Because Frost Giants were of only one gender, any person with Jotun blood could become pregnant if taken by a man. Odin himself had a small amount of Jotun blood in his ancestry and thus both Thor and Loki had the potential to bear children. Thor, unlike Loki, detested the idea of allowing a man to dominate him, so he had never needed to learn how to brew the tea, but he had seen Loki do it often enough.

There was only one more ingredient that Thor needed, and for that, they would have to return to the forest. Fresh jojubi eggs were plentiful, but difficult to obtain. Jojubis laid their eggs in the giant trees that grew in the forest along the city’s south wall. Thor would often follow Loki on his quest to the south wall in search of the eggs because his brother was always more pleasant company the morning after he had bedded a man and would often be in the mood to play a game of hide and chase with Thor while they were there. 

Thor thought it ironic that the horse now played Thor’s role as companion, while Thor himself had to find the eggs. When they were young and Loki had first invented the spell (to avoid going to the healing rooms and have his nocturnal activities reported to their mother), they had needed to climb the trees. But now Loki had his transportation and Thor his hammer.

It was easy to swing his hammer, vaulting him up and onto a wide branch where a large nest filled with nearly a hundred small eggs rested. Thor grabbed only one egg, which should be more than enough for a single cup of tea. Normally Thor would just jump from the tree branch, but Loki had once cautioned him against it, because the shake of the ground from his landing could dislodge the nest and hurt the future jujubi population. 

After a painstaking and exhausting climb down the tree’s wide trunk, Thor found the horse staring at his one egg skeptically. She nudged him and looked back up at the tree.

“More? Unlike my brother, I will only been needing one cup, as I do not intend to bed this man again.”

The horse nipped at Thor’s fingers then nosed the large amount of the other ingredients he’d gathered. It was obvious that she wanted him to make more, but why?

“How many men do you think I will accidentally get with child?” Thor asked, exasperated.

The horse whinnied, nipping Thor again.

The horse had made him gather enough herbs for a whole party to drink the tea. What could Thor possibly do with that much tea? 

The horse stared at him expectantly.

“Stop staring at me. You make it difficult to concentrate.”

The horse looked away pointedly.

“What would my brother do in such a situation?” Thor murmured to himself. Loki would have all sorts of underhanded ways to get the prince to unwittingly drink the potion. He could disguise its taste with magic or pour it into his throat as he slept. He could probably even transport it directly into Seupu’s stomach. 

But Thor had no such skill. He’d have to rely on deception and deception was not his strength. That must be why the horse wanted enough to feed the whole royal table.

Thor grinned wildly at the horse. “That’s why we need to make so much. So I can give it to the whole table - that way Seupu will not suspect me of anything!”

Once again, the horse appeared nonplussed, as though the solution were obvious.

“You are truly brilliant, horse. You remind me of my brother.”


	8. The Birth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki gives birth to Sleipnir.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This part contains a detailed description of horse birth.

The delegation from Alfheim had finally left, along with the traitorous prince Seupu. Seupu had tried many times to talk to Thor about what happened and even to send further courtship overtures in the form of rare herbs and trinkets, the finest bow and arrow Thor had ever seen, and even a ring that was enchanted with the faint traces of Seupu’s scent. Thor ignored them all. Seupu was the worse kind of political - forcing an alliance between the kingdoms through an undesired heir. The worst part was that Thor had genuinely liked Seupu and might have even considered marrying him in many years time. But Thor was not a man of deceptions and after suffering many a lie from his brother, Thor knew that he was too trusting to identify them. He did not mind the occasional prank from Loki, because he trusted Loki to never do something that would truly harm him, but Thor could not afford to be involved with a man who deceived well and without the restraint of a good heart. Thor could forgive, but he could not allow himself to be placed in a position to be deceived again.

Thor ignored his mother’s warnings about shunning his fellow prince and how it would anger Odin. He was fairly certain that if she knew of Seupu’s deception, she would agree with Thor. At least she _should_ agree with Thor. But Thor could not bring himself to tell her of how utterly stupid he had been to let Seupu deceive him so. She would be even more disappointed in him than she already was. 

To make matters worse, Thor was not convinced that Seupu’s father was free of blame for Seupu’s plot. He did not seem surprised that Thor was refusing to talk to Seupu and despite being a seriously diplomatic slight, it had not affected the negotiations (otherwise Frigga would have been astoundingly agry). Thor knew that his parents would need to know how much the kingdom of Alfheim hungered for the Asgardian throne, but he still could not bring himself to tell them.

“Do you think it’s wrong to keep this from my mother?” Thor asked the horse.

The stable hands had warned Thor that the birth could take place any day now based on the fact that the horse’s udder had begun to swell with milk and that births usually happened at night, so Thor took to sleeping with the horse in the stables - not wanting to break their routine or risk missing the birth of the foal. Thor knew that the stable hands had reported this behavior to his mother and that she did not approve of it. It was one thing to enjoy sleeping under the stars and quite another for the crown prince to spend his nights in a pile of straw with his horse.

The horse did not seem to think that Thor needed to tell his family about the indiscretion with Prince Seupu, but she had been aloof and a bit judgemental towards him ever since the incident. Thor hoped it was just the impending birth that had her behaving this way and not some betrayal he had commited by not heeding her warnings.

“Have you ever given birth before?” Thor asked the horse.

She had not.

“I looked at diagrams in the library. It looks painful.”

The horse snorted, as if to say ‘of course it’s painful, you fool.’

“But at least it’ll be quick - much quicker than Aesir women. Are you scared?”

The horse nodded.

“I’d be scared too,” Thor admitted. “A battle with unwinnable odds doesn’t scare me, but pushing a child out of my body does.”

The horse seemed to want to ask a question, but couldn’t articulate it.

Thor answered the question a reasonable person probably would have asked. “I do not know if I’m fertile. I never had the test done. My brother definitely is, so chances are that I am too. Mother wanted me to have the test, but what would be the object of knowing that I’m fertile if I would never allow a man to do that to me?”

The horse looked at him like Thor was stupid. It was the same look that Loki had given him when Thor had explained his reason for not doing the test. Unlike the horse, Loki had then proceeded to go into graphic detail about how amazing being taken by a man could be. It had only succeeded in making Thor want to take more men, especially those who felt as Loki did, and to have a very inconvenient erection in front of his brother. Despite Thor’s protests, Loki hadn’t seemed to believe him. In retrospect, that was probably why Loki allowed Thor to watch him make the anti-conception tea so many times when he did almost every other piece of spellwork in secret.

Thor smiled. His brother would always look out for him, even if he didn’t want Thor to realize he was doing it.

“I do not understand why men allow themselves to be taken by another man in that way. Does it not make you feel weak?” Thor asked the horse.

She nipped him.

“I suppose you enjoyed how you came into your current condition.” The horse seemed too clever to allow herself to be mated if she didn’t desire it.

She stared at Thor for a long moment before shaking her head. 

“I’m sorry.” There wasn’t much more to say. He petted her, imagining how much more violent things must be in nature for his sweet magical horse to be taken against her will. When they were riding across the plain or sleeping beneath the stars, she had never let him see the many ways that nature could be cruel.

“Even then, it doesn’t make you feel weak?”

The horse did not respond. It seemed this issue was beyond their meager ability to communicate. But, then again, maybe that was why Thor was willing to discuss it. Any talk of sex with the warriors three turned raunchy in a heartbeat and to suggest to Sif that women were weak in any way was asking for a mace to his groin. Thor didn’t even feel comfortable discussing it with his brother, despite the fact that Thor felt comfortable telling Loki most things. Maybe, when Loki returned, Thor would ask him more about it and hope it did not end in another inconvenient erection. 

With his brother’s absence and his mother angered with him most of the time, Thor was aware that he had withdrawn from even the friends he normally talked to. He had never been one for talk and always preferred action, but he had been social, drinking mead with the warriors and quick to join games. Now all of his ‘kingly’ duties reminded Thor that he was not one of the men and could not behave like a drunken bohr, as his mother always cautioned him. He was royalty and thus apart and more lonely than ever.

“You have a good life, horse. No responsibilities.”

The horse looked pointedly at her swollen belly.

“You make a good point; you have responsibilities, but you have instincts to help with them. You need not force yourself to be what you are not for the sake of others. It is like pounding my head continuously against Mjolnir, this business of ruling. Half the kingdom would probably be more naturally inclined to it than I am, but the task falls to me. _You_ would probably make a better king than I and you cannot even talk.”

The horse seemed to agree.

***

Thor was in the middle of Royal Audience - a wife who had burned her husband’s genitals for laying with another woman and a husband who wanted reparations - when one of the stable boys burst in, panting. 

Frigga stared down at him with a storm brewing in her eyes. She had been making Thor suggest solutions to her before he settled each audience and, according to her, he had been making increasingly stupid decisions. With his mother’s patience already at its breaking point, Thor feared for a moment that the stable boy would spontaneously combust from her glare. 

“To what do we own this interruption?” Frigga asked, turning away from the poor trembling boy as though she could not stand to even look at him.

“Pri . . . Prince Thor,” he stuttered, “asked . . . he asked me to tell him if . . . if his horse went into labor, your majesty.”

Frigga’s glare shifted to Thor. “Son, do you think it appropriate to interrupt Royal Audience over a horse?”

Thor grimaced. He knew his mother couldn’t possibly understand his relationship with the horse, but he had hoped that she’d grasp that it was important to him. He had hoped that the horse would foal at night, as was typical, but she was not a typical horse. It didn’t matter what political nonsense Thor had scheduled, he needed to be there for her. She would be scared and hurting and after all she had helped him through, Thor owed it to her to be there.

“You do not need me for this, mother. I will only make more mistakes and anger you further.”

He turned to the arguing husband and wife. “I am sorry, citizens of Asgard, but I must excuse myself.”

Frigga looked resigned, but the anger in her eyes said they would be discussing the matter privately and at great length when there were no longer citizens present. 

Thor didn’t bother to wait for the stable boy. He swung his hammer and used the momentum to fly to the stables. The horse was not in her stall, but her whinnies of pain drew Thor easily over to one of the larger enclosed stalls. The horse lay on her side, taking deep wheezing breaths, clearly agitated. She would move as if to stand up and then lay back down again. The contractions danced visibly across her skin as she whimpered and pushed, hooves scrabbling helplessly on the dirt of the stable floor.

The lead stable hand and two of the stable boys were looking on from outside the enclosure. Thor pushed them aside, “Why are you standing there? She’s in pain. Do something!”

“Horses are skilled at labor,” the lead stable hand pointed out. “They resist Aesir interference and almost never need it. We are here only in case of complications. The foal should be born in moments.”

Thor ignored the warnings and the restraining hands in order to open the stable door and rush to the horse’s side.

“Watch out, she might bite you!” someone shouted when Thor lifted the horse’s head and placed it in his lap. 

It was probably one of the few times that the horse did not try to bite him. Thor stroked her white mane, feeling the sweat on her neck - worse than even their most strenuous rides.

It was not long before the foal began to emerge. Thor knew that foals emerged headfirst, but he could hardly tell, as it just appeared to be legs exiting.

“You are doing very good,” Thor reassured the horse. “I can see your child! Just push a little more.”

But despite the heaving breaths and all the horse’s restless pushing, the foal did not emerge further. She became increasingly distressed, crying out and kicking her hooves in pain.

Thor looked at the stable hands and his heart beat faster seeing their worry. One of the boys ran to grab healing materials and the lead stable hand finally entered the stable. He ran a comforting hand down the horse’s side in reassurance.

“Don’t worry,” Thor told the horse. “We’ll help you.” He turned to the stable hand. “This isn’t normal?”

He looked down at the foal, shaking his head. “It looks like it’s coming out with all four feet first. All my time working at the royal stables and I have never seen this. We’ll try to ease him out, but if this is as bad as it looks, we may have to cut her a little to allow this one out.”

Thor stiffened in horror. He’d heard of such practices for Aesir women, but it was rare and done by a team of healers. Horses were not as valuable as Aesir women and Thor wondered if the stable hands would do so and expect the horse to survive. 

“We should get her to stand,” the stable hand said, but despite all their attempts, the mare would not budge. 

“She needs to stand so that the foal will return to the womb and can reposition itself.”

The horse shook her head violently, glaring at Thor. 

“She does not desire to do that.”

“Too bad! She can’t deliver the foal with all four feet first.”

The horse shook her head again, begging Thor with eyes blown black with fear and adrenaline. 

“She thinks she can.”

“She’s a horse!”

Thor did not have time to argue the intelligence of his magical horse with the stable hands who already thought he was crazy for spending so much time talking to her. “Look, let her try a little longer and then we can force her.”

The stable hand sighed, murmuring about know-everything princes with obsessive relationships with their horses.

The stable hand pulled away the membrane that covered the foal and looked closely at its four hooves. He grabbed ahold of them and pulled at little, eliciting a pained noise from the horse. Thor patted her head, trying to reassure her.

Tense moments later, the horse’s struggling finally seemed to result.

“Oh, wait, we have a head,” the stable hand shouted.

“Is that good?”

“I can’t say. The foal must be contorted into an almost impossible position for there to be all four legs and a head showing.”

The horse shuddered, forcing the foal out further.

“Oh Valhalla,” the stable hand said in awe.

“What?” Thor demanded.

“The foal isn’t coming with all four legs first. It has four forelegs!”

The horse’s child was deformed? Thor shuddered, but continued to sooth his companion, whispering to her that everything would be fine and that she was almost there and would see her baby soon.

The rest of the labor was slow and pained compared to what Thor had read in the library, but eventually the foal was born. The horse collapsed into Thor’s lap with great heaving breaths, her belly looking strangely concave and empty. She nudged him with her nose, sad green eyes shining with relief and entreaty.

For once, Thor understood her meaning so he lay her head down on the floor to check on her baby. 

Pulling the rest of the membrane away revealed that the little dapple grey foal had eight legs instead of four.

“Helheim,” the stable hand swore, “I cannot believe it.”

Despite its abnormality, the foal did not seem deformed. It nuzzled Thor’s hand when he used a towel to clean it and all eight legs moved independently. They waited a long while - until after the sunset - hoping that the horse would find the strength to stand and server the cord on her own before deciding to cut the umbilical cord. Thor thought to use his runic knife (the one gifted to him by Seupu) but, moving for the first time since she’d finally delivered the foal, the horse kicked out, knocking the knife from Thor’s hands. The stable hand shook his head, grabbing a special knife from the healing kit and easily accomplishing the task without getting kicked.

“Normally, the mare would start licking the little one, but her labor was the most difficult I’ve seen and she is very tired. We’ll let her rest while we try to get the foal standing.”

It was a trial, learning to stand on eight legs, but eventually the foal managed it, looking surprised once he arrived on his feet. The stable hands quickly cleaned his belly button with healing gel and checked him over for any problems other than being born with eight legs. He leaned against Thor, probably expecting milk. 

“We have to get her up, now,” the stable hand said after a long while letting the horse rest. “The baby needs to nurse soon after birth.”

Thor moved slowly away from the foal once he was certain that he could stand on his own. The horse’s panting breaths were less desperate now, though she still lay on her side. Thor roused her gently, stroking her neck.

“You did very well, horse. But your baby needs milk now. We will help you stand.”

The horse was too tired to nod, but she moved as if to stand before flopping back down. Thor and the three stable hands slowly helped push and pull her to her feet. Luckily, the foal did not need any help finding a way to nurse.

The foal stuck close to its mother, even when she delivered the afterbirth considerably later. The stable hand warned that horses would try to eat the afterbirth, but she ignored it, walking with her foal towards the stable door and then out into the pasture to eat a little sweet grass. Thor gave her a few apples and thanked the stable staff. It was dark now, but the moon was still close to full. The foal nuzzled and played with Thor for a short time before clearly tiring. Thor expected the horse to head back to the stable to sleep, but instead she walked over to the big apple tree in the middle of the pasture. She obviously wanted her foal to spend its first night sleeping under the stars as she and Thor loved to do. 

Thor retrieved several blankets from the stables to drape over them all. He fell asleep pressed against the horse’s back with the foal curled up between them. 

***

Thor awakened to a frigid hand on his chest and someone shivering. It was still dark outside, but in the ethereal glow of the moonlight he could see the form of another man with long black hair cuddled against him. He at first thought that Seupu had somehow returned to molest him again, but after blinking the sleep from his eyes, he knew that there was only one person it could be. He’d know the body sprawled naked against him almost his entire life. He knew the way every muscle played over bone on that lean body, every scar and imperfection, every expression on the face that was now looking languidly up at him, green eyes shining.

“Loki?” Thor whispered, almost afraid to break the spell of this silent moonlit night. He’d been hoping for this moment for nearly a year and now that it had finally arrived it seemed so surreal that Thor was half convinced that he still dreamed.

Loki nodded. His smooth black hair was much longer now and greasy. His naked body was covered in sweat, dirt, and a little blood. He had deep bags under his eyes and a weight to his movements that spoke of utter exhaustion. He looked so far from his usual polished self and yet he was the sweetest thing Thor had ever seen. Thor pulled his brother to him, pulling back only when Loki gasped, obviously sore. 

“Where have you been all this time?” Thor asked, pulling the blankets tight around them in order to ease Loki’s shivers.

Loki didn’t answer, just looked pointedly at Thor in the exact way the horse did when she wanted him to know that her lack of response had nothing to do with the fact that she couldn’t talk and everything to do with the fact that Thor’s question was too stupid to warrant an answer. 

Speaking of the horse, she wasn’t anywhere in the field, even though the foal slept contentedly curled up against Loki’s back. “What happened to the horse?”

Loki sighed, his voice scratchy and slow with sleep. “Thor, you lovable idiot, I _am_ the horse.”

Before Thor could even begin to process that, Loki closed his eyes, nuzzling against Thor’s chest in the same way the horse had always done. A heartbeat later, Loki was asleep, curled against his brother under the stars.


	9. Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki and Thor keep Loki's presence secret from their friends and family, Frigga keeps a secret from her boys, and Sif shares the palace gossip.

It had taken Thor a long time to fall back to sleep the previous night. At first he simply enjoyed the soft rise and fall of his brother’s chest, the way he looked so peaceful, almost angelic, in sleep, and the sweet herbal smell that seemed to have seeped into Loki’s skin from years of potions and spellcasting. But then Thor started thinking, remembering all that had happened the past eleven moons and trying to reconcile those events with the fact that the horse had been his brother all along.

The first, most astounding thing was that as a horse, Loki had allowed Thor to ride him. While Thor had no problem slinging his brother over his back and simply walking off with him, Loki had always insisted that such behavior was not regal. Loki himself was not prone to physical affection and always carried himself with a kind of aloof dignity that suggested that he would bow to no one, or if he were made to bow, he would make the act so troublesome that anyone dumb enough to try to force it would regret the impulse.

Thor could hardly believe that Loki had willingly taken him onto his back. But then again, the horse had always made it clear that Thor rode according to her will and not because Thor himself had any right to demand it. Still, Thor imagined that Loki must have been very desperate for his company to even submit to that much indignity. Loki must have been quite lonely.

The horse had on many occasions shared Loki’s dry sense of humor, propensity for pranks, and disdain for Thor’s more ill-advised actions. Her interactions with Thor when he did something stupid were exactly the same as Loki when he was in his proper form.

Furthermore, Thor had no problems understanding Loki’s more protective actions as a horse. Saving Thor from himself had long been a pastime of Loki’s. In battle Thor was an unstoppable force without parallel, but whenever he took a turn for a strategic dead end, Loki was quick to stop him. And now that Thor knew exactly how horrible he was at politics, he realized how much his brother had always covered for him - talking with the older delegates and leaving Thor with the princes or princesses or finding an irresistible adventure for Thor whenever a particularly difficult political matter arrived at court. Loki never protected Thor from their parents and in fact allowed Thor to take the blame for ideas that often originated with Loki, but he had effectively been shielding him from the outside world for years. 

Thor had always thought that introducing him to the horse was Loki’s way of showing Thor the magic of the universe as he saw it and knowing that the horse had been Loki all along only intensified Thor’s feelings of humble gratitude that his brother would include him in his world that way. In a way, it made him feel closer to Loki than he had since childhood while at the same time making his heart ache that Loki did not feel that he could be this sweet magical creature when in his true form.

In fact, Thor found himself anxious about what Loki would do now that words and politics were available to him again. Thor had loved him as a horse and felt a soul-deep bond to him. Loki had been more open than Thor had ever seen him and Thor feared that now Loki no longer needed Thor’s companionship, they would lose the closeness they had cultivated this year. Thor found himself more scared by the prospect than he had been scared of anything in a long time.

With the horse, there had been tricks, and magic, and sweetness, but no lies. Thor didn’t think he could take it if Loki started lying to him again. It would break his heart.

And there was the matter of the throne. Odin had declared Thor his heir-apparent and Thor had begun to have second thoughts on the matter. Loki had never proclaimed to want the throne, but he’d never expressed any confidence that Thor should have it either. And Loki had always be prideful. He probably wanted to be offered the throne and then to turn it down. And if his motivations for staying away had been due to pregnancy and not running away from his princely duties, it was not at all clear what Loki wanted from the situation and with Thor so confused as to his own desires, he had no idea what would happen to the royal succession - only that it would be a painful series of events for all involved.

Despite all his worries, the even rhythm of Loki’s breathing and the soft snuffles of the foal eventually lulled Thor into a fitful sleep. He dreamed of the white horse running through a citadel of ice with Thor chasing behind her. There were frost giants and great serpents and other monsters, but Thor ignored them all, chasing the horse until a blizzard swallowed her whole. Thor called out for Loki and then they were on the rainbow bridge, locked in battle with the stars that Thor loved so much all around them, seeming to jeer. There was a desperate, malevolent glint in Loki’s eyes that Thor had never seen before. And then the hammer dropped, cracking the clear surface of the rainbow bridge like ice. They both stared down at it and then Loki smiled a terrible smile that took pleasure in suffering and leaned forward, leaving Thor with a knife in his gut and a kiss as he jumped off the bridge and into the infinite wonder of the universe. 

Thor woke in a panic, looking for Loki and finding only the mess of blankets wrapped around him. Neither Loki nor the foal slept next to him. Dawn had long since crept into morning and after a moment of panicked disorientation, Thor spotted them in a far corner of the pasture - the horse and her eight-legged foal. 

Thor jumped out of the nest of blankets and rushed over to them. The horse was grazing while the foal suckled. Both ignored Thor’s approach.

“Loki,” Thor exclaimed. “You are a horse again.”

The horse didn’t look at him, but rather turned her head to nuzzle at her foal.

“Loki,” Thor whispered harshly, noting the approach of the head stable hand. Had he imagined that the horse transformed into his brother? Surely it could not have been a dream, considering how long he spent watching his brother sleep the night before. The memory was too sharp.

He poked the horse. “I saw you last night, brother. There is no need to hide.”

“Prince Thor,” the stable hand bellowed. “It is good to see you finally arisen.” He made to pat the horse, but she turned her head away. “Don’t worry, a mare can be protective of her newborn foal. She’ll sweeten to you again soon. A lot of people are waiting at the gate, wanting to see the eight-legged foal, but I thought you would not appreciate a crowd in here watching you sleep.”

“Thank you, good man,” Thor replied, “but I’m afraid I must ask you not to let them in at all.” Thor was certain that Loki would not appreciate gawkers looking at his child with painful curiosity. He was even more certain that Loki would hate people seeing him in his horse form.

The stable hand looked as though he might ask Thor why he didn’t want others to see, but seemed to remember himself. Thor was the crowned prince and only the king and queen could override his orders in the royal stables.

Once the stable hand had departed, Thor poked the horse again. “Loki, he’s gone now. You can transform.” 

The horse took her sweet time finishing her mouthful of grass before casually ambling to the gate of the pasture. Thor opened it for her and the foal, following along beside them on the path into the woods. The foal was able to keep up with its mother’s slow gate, though they stopped twice in order to allow him to suckle. 

“It is customary to name the foal within a day, so I will do so tonight,” Thor offered, hoping to force Loki to reveal himself. “If you have a preference for a name, you should suggest it.”

The horse ignored him, quickening her gate towards the woods. They did not travel far inside, only to the same waterfall where Seupu had seduced Thor. If Loki intended to bask in the irony, he did not show it. Instead, he let the foal rest curled up in Thor’s lap and ambled over to the low waterfall. After more than a few moments submerged beneath it, a man, not a horse, emerged.

“Sleipnir,” Loki said.

“Excuse me?” Thor was distracted by his brother’s milky white skin and handsome features. Loki had never been particularly comfortable bathing naked in front of others, probably because he was not as large or well-defined as the other warriors, but he seemed perfectly at home now, not even bothering to cover himself when he unfastened Thor’s cape and lay down on top of it in a patch of sun.

“Sleipnir is my son’s name.”

Thor knew he looked like an idiot, but all he could do was stare. “Brother, you’re back!”

Loki rolled his eyes. “I believe you already knew that.”

Thor grinned. “This morning you had me half convinced I was insane, talking to you as a horse.”

“How do you know you are not insane?” Loki asked. “You have been getting advice from a horse for many moons.”

Thor laughed, but Loki’s serious expression made him doubt himself for a moment. He frowned. From the point of view of his friends and family, Thor knew that his behavior over the past year probably did seem insane. But it hardly mattered. It had not been a horse, but his brother and Thor had been wise to seek his brother’s council.

“It wasn’t a horse, brother. It was you.”

Loki laughed. “You didn’t know it was me. I tried to tell you, but you didn’t listen.”

Thor scoffed. “If you had truly wanted me to know, you could have scraped a message to me in the dirt of your stall or used your magic.”

“Admittedly, I did not try very hard. It was amusing to see watch you struggling with your rule.”

Thor flushed with anger. “Are you saying that you enjoyed my suffering and that of the kingdom at my hands? This was all just fun to you?”

Loki flinched away, a flitting, horselike movement of instinctual panic that stilled Thor’s anger. He was not used to seeing his brother afraid of him.

“I won’t deny that some of the situations you got yourself into were comical, but to tell the truth, I enjoyed having you confide in me.”

“Now I must be insane. Since when does my brother admit to enjoying my company?”

Thor’s heart sank at Loki’s answer: “since yours was the only company I was able to enjoy.”

Maybe what they had shared was not a deepening of their ages-old brotherly bond, but simply a relationship born of isolation and convenience. But at least Thor’s isolation had been self-imposed to a degree. Loki truly had no one else and even Thor could not listen to the multitude of sorrows that no doubt resulted from being transformed into an animal and to be carrying a child as well. 

Thor paused, a chill running down his spine. He remembered asking the horse if she had enjoyed getting with child and the answer had been no. That meant that this wasn’t one of Loki’s experiments - he had become pregnant and had been unable to transform himself because he had been taken against his will.

“Loki . . .”

Thor had always been transparent to his brother, so Loki preempted him. “No, Thor, I do not want to talk about all the indignities I suffered in my time as a horse, not the least of which was a giant blond oaf riding on my back.”

Loki and his silver tongue could persuade and evade all they wanted, but Thor was stubborn. He would get Loki to talk about it eventually, but right now there was one question to which he needed an answer. “I am not an indignity, brother. But I merely meant to ask you how you came to be a horse and how you came to bear Sleipnir.”

They were reasonable questions that Loki could not justify ignoring.

“If you only applied your mind to more than fighting, you could have figured it out on your own and spared me the headache,” Loki complained. This, at least, was their familiar interaction - Loki accusing Thor of being stupid at every opportunity. Thor wanted to support his brother and help him to come to terms with any trauma he had suffered, but he honestly did not know if he could handle Loki breaking down in front of him. “You remember the wall builder and his horse and how the horse conveniently disappeared?”

Thor nodded.

“At first I debated killing it, but the stallion was a hard working steed and innocent. I thought myself clever when I came up with a plan to distract the steed without harming it. I transformed myself into a mare in heat and lured the stallion into the woods. He chased me all night, as I planned. But I tired and I was not careful enough to avoid being mated.”

Thor shivered. Loki had a gift for sidestepping the real issue. Thor felt his heart break, knowing that his little brother had been violated - horse form or not.

“It was not your fault, brother.”

Loki chuckled bitterly. “If not my fault, then a consequence of my actions - or of my arrogance, perhaps.”

Thor debated for a moment whether Loki would welcome his comfort, but when his brother flinched away from the arm he was about to put around him, Thor subsided. 

Loki looked down at Sleipnir where he slept curled in Thor’s lap. “The next day when I attempted to revert to my own form, I found that I could not, because my body rejected any action that could be harmful to my child. I wandered aimlessly until I sensed you in the forest. I had no interest in spending nearly a year wandering around alone as a horse, vulnerable to illness and predators, so I lured you to me. You know what became after that.”

Thor nodded. “I treasured our time together, brother. Though I wish I had known it was you.”

“We will have more time together, Thor. I must nurse Sleipnir for another two moons before I return to my usual form. We will stay at the palace stables so that he may socialize with the other horses and learn to be a horse more than I can show him.”

Thor brightened. “So you will stay in the palace at least another two moons? You can help me with Royal Audience! Mother will be much relieved.”

Loki shook his head. “In case you failed to notice, Sleipnir nurses often. Besides, I will _not_ suffer the judgement for the unnatural acts I have committed.”

Thor felt his chest constrict. “You did what was best for Asgard. Surely they will not blame you for it.”

“Thor, your naivety knows no bounds. Trust me, I appreciate that you think nothing of it, but the court will not be so kind. They have always thought me to be a strange aberration, not like other Aesir, not to be trusted, and of course, never to be given the throne.”

“You’d be much better at it,” Thor offered.

“I know I would, but you are the only one who thinks so.”

“After my recent failings as ruler, I am sure there are more who would agree.”

Loki sighed. “Perhaps. But if they find out that I lay with a stallion and got with child as a mare? Not many would abide by such perversion as a companion, let alone king.”

“It is not a perversion!” Thor shouted, waking Sleipnir, who immediately bolted from Thor’s lap to run to his mother. Loki cradled his trembling form in his arms, petting him. Thor was just surprised that the little horse understood that Loki was the same as his horse mother. 

“It’s not a perversion,” Thor continued at a whisper. “You did what needed to be done for the sake of the kingdom. It is such loyalty that we teach our warriors. Why should they not applaud you for it? I do.”

The anger in Loki’s eyes for scaring Sleipnir melted away and he leaned forward, clasping Thor’s neck. “Oh, brother, I truly wish things were as glittering and grand as they are in your limited imagination. But this is why you will never learn to rule. You see only the best in those who you deem to be good and only the worst in those you see as evil. But the world is not light and darkness. We are all made of shadows, even you. The most malevolent of men do not think themselves evil and the best among us still commit terrible wrongs, even if out of ignorance. You must commune with the shadows, learn to love them and bend them to your will. If you want me to stand beside you, accepted by our people, you will help me keep this secret.”

“And Sleipnir? When you have become a prince again and stand by my side, you will abandon him?”

Loki hugged his child to him, clinging more desperately than Thor had ever seen him do anything. “Sleipnir will always be my son and I will always love him, but he will also always be a horse. I sense no ability to transform in him.”

“Could you not transform him?”

Loki shook his head. “Physically, yes, but magic cannot transcend consciousness. Sleipnir has magic enough in him to transform himself, but he does not have the consciousness of an Aesir. He would behave as a horse in an Aesir body.”

“But he’s intelligent! He knows you even in your current form. He plays in a manner different from the other horses.”

Loki smiled. “He is more intelligent than an ordinary horse, but he is what he is and he must make his way in the world as a horse. We will find him a glorious purpose, brother. And he will always know that he is loved. Now, if you will excuse me, I believe my son is hungry.”

Before Loki could transform, Thor reached out, pulling his brother to him. “Even if you cannot return to court as soon as I hoped, it is good to have you back, brother. I missed you terribly.”

“Honestly, Thor, I was here the entire time. It is your own fault you did not notice.”

Thor ignored Loki’s protest. Did it matter that Loki thought Thor lived in an imagined world where all was good? Loki was here and that gave Thor reason to hope that things _could_ be good. They _would_ be. They had to be.

***

Thor had hoped to avoid his mother and the many royal headaches of court today, but Frigga was wise, crafty, and she knew her son intimately.

Thor had barely set foot in his chambers when his mother stepped in. Thor had many times asked for different seals on his doors that did not allow his mother uninvited access as though he were a child, but his wish was not granted. Loki had changed the magics on his own chambers, but there was no bribe that could convince him to do so for Thor. He claimed that he would put the charm on when Thor acted like an adult.

Frigga wore her full ceremonial regalia, which she only wore when Odin slept. It was gold and silver and mirrored the interweaving metals of Loki’s ceremonial attire, but was made out of the finest chain mail instead of solid pieces. The only solid pieces were a high silver collar that emphasized the long line of her neck and a crown with thin intricate swirls that wove throughout her hair to protect like a helmet without looking as absurd as an actual helmet.

She was dressed as a queen on the throne and with the trappings of war. This was not the sweet, nurturing woman that was Thor’s mother, but rather a ruler dealing with a subject. Thor winced.

“Let us pretend, for a moment, that the birth of a horse warrants fleeing from Royal Audience,” she said in a tone that implied that such flight was in no way acceptable. “Even in such a world, I could not imagine how it could take a full day and a half to return from the Royal Stables, especially with a hammer that allows one to fly.”

Thor cursed Loki and his secrets. Because if Frigga knew that it had been the birth of her first grandson that occupied Thor’s time she would have forgotten her anger in the joy of the event. Thor clenched a hand on Mjolnir’s hilt. His mother knew that he did so to suppress his anger and rule in his temper, but he did not care if she knew she’d angered him. 

“I am sorry, mother.”

Frigga stared him down for a long time before relenting, transforming from queen to mother once again. She sat down on the three-chair in Thor’s sitting area, motioning for him to sit beside her. She put an arm around him and clutched him to her chest. “Oh, Thor, I know this is difficult for you, but you must endure it. This will be your life one day and you must not run from it, but learn to take joy in it.”

“I did not run. I . . .” but there was no good excuse other than the truth and Loki had robbed him of that.

Frigga sighed. “Thor, you may have initially left out of desire to see your horse’s foal, but you were running away when you decided to stay there.”

Thor gave up fighting her. Let her think he was scared of the future. He was. But that didn’t mean he would run from it. Thor never ran from anything. 

“It will get better, my son,” Frigga continued, stroking Thor’s hair. “Your father and I have not been good teachers in the past, but we are determined. We will make you a great king.”

But this was not enough. Thor knew it was perilously close to the tantrums of temper he had been prone to as a boy. “What if I don’t want to be king?!”

“Few who understand what it truly entails do want to, but it is the curse of your station. You were born a prince and so you must learn.”

“And why can Loki not sit on the throne? You cannot tell me that he would not handle all these matters better than I.”

Thor hated to see that look of heartbreak in Frigga’s eye. It spoke to her sadness and her worry for her son, but in a moment of rare insight, Thor realized that it also whispered of broken dreams. Thor had always taken after his father and excelled in the art of war that his father valued, while Loki had always been most loved by their mother - coddled and indulged. But Thor understood now - it wasn’t indulgence because Frigga sought to compensate for the way others devalued Loki’s talents, but rather because Frigga herself valued Loki’s talents as superior to Thor and Odin’s. Her broken dream was to see Loki, her favored son, sit atop the throne. 

“Your brother is not here,” Frigga replied, voice trembling ever so slightly.

There might be a way out of this yet. “And if he had a good reason to not be present?”

“Thor,” Frigga breathed, “if you know something of your brother’s reasoning . . . if you know his whereabouts, you must tell me. There are things,” she paused, looking stricken, “I worry so much for him.”

“Loki can take care of himself. You know that.”

“I am not worried about his skill in combat,” Frigga replied. “But Loki has other vulnerabilities that you do not. He is - has always been - different. It is urgent. If he suffers from particular woes, you must tell me so I can go to him.”

Her words were stilted, careful like the politicians at court and the diplomatic emissaries. “Mother, you speak in riddles. Does Loki have an illness that you have not told me about?”

Frigga pursed her lips, clearly regretting having spoken at all. “No. Though ever since he had those terrible fevers as a child I have worried more about his health than I have yours. It is that your brother is sensitive and there are some things in the universe, some knowledge, that could be harmful to him.”

“You mean like a secret? A secret you have been keeping from him?”

Frigga’s smile was strained. “Oh, no, my child, nothing like that. I am merely desperate to see my son and anxious for my husband’s long sleep. Forget my ramblings.” Her words had weight - more than just a mere plea. They had magic behind them. Luckily after a recent interrogation by some dwarves, Loki had enchanted a simple silver anklet with a protection against compulsion spells. It was not as strong as a necklace and would not protect against a determined sorcerer, but they had decided that an anklet was far less likely to be removed in the case of capture.

Had his mother just tried to magic away part of Thor’s memory? He froze. She did not know about the anklet. Thor had scoffed at Loki’s order to tell no one, even their parents, but now Loki’s paranoia did not seem so groundless. 

Thor was a terrible liar and he felt himself tense with nervousness and even a little fear. Of his own mother?

He needed to distract her so he blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “You didn’t answer my question, mother. All else being equal, why could Loki not sit on the throne?”

“Because your father chose you.”

“But you believe Loki would make a better king?”

Frigga stared at her son for a long moment before relenting. “Yes, Thor, your brother would make a better king. But now, we must forget such things and hope that he returns to us and consents to help you rule.”

Thor wanted to demand answers. A year ago he would have raged until he got them. But if cunning was what it took to become a good king, then he needed to convince his mother that all was good and then return to Loki and devise a way to uncover the secret that she would erase her own son’s memory to hide.

***

“Well you look happy,” Sif commented the moment Thor arrived in the banquet hall. “I haven’t seen you in such a state for many moons.”

Thor couldn’t help himself. He grinned wider. Despite his disturbing conversation with his mother, his brother had returned to him and he had a nephew. “The horse gave birth!”

“We heard,” Volstagg commented between bites. “Eight legs. It must be some horse!”

“She is. And the foal is incredible.” Thor beamed with pride. If Loki had his way, he would not ever be able to call Sleipnir nephew, but the two of them knew and that would have to be enough.

“Eight legs or not, it is just a horse,” Fandral commented, staring at Thor skeptically over the lip of his stein. “The maidens of the court are curious to hear when the prince will return to sleep in the palace. They are always disquieted when Loki disappears, but to be deprived of you is a crime, to hear them talk of it.”

“You should be happy, Fandral. With your superiors gone, certainly they will finally look at you.”

All the warriors chuckled.

“I do well even with both princes in residence,” Fandral replied haughtily. “But even I cannot slake the lust of every courtly maiden.”

When Thor looked around he did notice a certain hunger in the eyes of some of his former lovers. He forced his gaze back to Fandral. Thor had never been skittish about his romantic adventures, especially because the maidens of court, unlike foreign princes, would be blamed if they slacked in their anti-conception regimens. Even so, the experience with Seupu had put an irrational fear in Thor. And, to be honest, he felt that in his travels with the horse - with _Loki_ \- he had begun to outgrow such trysts. There was magic and beauty in the universe, harmonics and aesthetics whose call far outpaced the simple desires of the flesh. Thor doubted he could give up the act itself permanently, but he now understood why his brother rejected more lovers than he allowed.

“Is that a blush?” Sif laughed. “Oh, the mighty Thor is ashamed of how he has disappointed the poor palace maidens!” Sif always had endless fun slighting the palace maidens.

“No!” Thor insisted. “I am merely tired of such things. They will have to deal with disappointment longer. I am very interested to see how the eight-legged foal matures. I will continue to adjourn to the stables.”

Sif rolled her eyes. “You know that this is quite the scandal, do you not? At weaving circle . . .”

Volstagg nearly spit out his mead in laughter. Everyone except Thor always laughed imagining Sif trying to weave. Thor and Loki had actually seen it once. Loki had transformed himself into a maiden and shrunk Thor so he could hide in his sewing basket. Sif sitting stiffly in a traditional dress had nearly done them in and her poor weaving even moreso. Loki, perfectionist that he was, managed a much finer pattern than she did. But after a while they had slunk away, noting how the other maidens maligned Sif whenever Frigga was out of the room. The maidens were crueler even than the warriors with their mean spirited pranks and harsh words. Loki and Thor had enjoyed taking their revenge in prank form on each and every one of them who had dared malign Sif. 

“At weaving circle,” Sif shouted over Volstagg and Fandral’s riotous laughter, “which, may I point out, I have only been forced to attend by Thor’s distraction and our lack of quests, there is a lot of speculation about why the prince does not sleep in the palace and none of it is good. Some theories may even be seditious.”

Thor frowned. “What about my love of sleeping under the stars could possibly be seditious?” Thor asked.

Sif slapped Thor on the back of the head. “Are you always this dense or just when Loki is not around to mind you? Nobody knows you have a love of sleeping under the stars. They only know what they see, which is that you sneak off at night and do not sleep in the palace and when you do make decisions of court, they all seem to lead Asgard into trouble.”

“Then I will tell them that I merely enjoy the wonders of nature.”

“That,” Volstagg pointed out while grabbing himself fifths, “will only add to the rumor that you are in love with your horse.”

Thor recoiled, remembering Loki’s prediction of how his own predicament would be seen.

“You can’t just expect people to believe what you say, Thor,” Sif explained, exasperated. “Add to this that business with the sea creature, the many, many conflicts that you have created in Royal Audience, the fact that the kitchen staff know you gave anti-conception tea to the whole delegation of Alfheim, the length of this Odinsleep, and the fact that Loki has been gone far longer than ever before . . . some people posit that you are working deliberately against the interests of our kingdom.”

“Sif, you know that is not true. All those things are mere mistakes and coincidence.”

“ _I_ know it’s not true. I’m more inclined to believe that you are in love with your horse. But what I think hardly matters.”

“We can believe that you are suffering from inexperience and incompetence,” Volstagg added, “but the people have always adored you. You are such a skilled warrior and your father so wise that they expect the same of you.”

“That is not fair.”

Sif once again rolled her eyes. “Of course it’s not fair. But that is the way of the realms. You are well-liked enough that no one believes this to be deliberate. They all think you are under the spell of some sorcerer who is keeping Loki prisoner and forcing your father to stay in Odinsleep.”

“That is ridiculous.”

“It’s a rumor, Thor. It can be ridiculous and insidious at the same time!”

“Then what do you suggest I do, Sif?”

It was not Sif who answered, but Hogun. “Return to the palace and stop making so many mistakes.”

Unfortunately, those two things were in conflict. In order to stop making mistakes, Thor planned to seek Loki’s advice. But in order to get Loki’s advice, he would have to sneak away and not just to the stables, because Loki had made it clear that he would not change his form in the stables.

“I will not change my personal habits based on a ridiculous rumor,” Thor declared. “I will endeavor to make less mistakes.”

Volstagg outright laughed at that, but it was enough for Sif to drop the subject.

***

The next day when Thor told Loki about the rumors he laughed at the stupidity of Sif’s weaving group, but agreed that something should be done. 

“I will help you, Thor. Tell mother that you do not yet feel comfortable with Royal Audience and ask to observe her.” Loki smiled, reaching up to pick an apple from a nearby tree for Sleipnir.

“She already forces me to analyze every decision with her - even if it is increasing the maximum size of stalls in the market.”

“Maximum sizes of stalls are important. Suffer it. Mother does not allow you much power in the other matters of rule. But if she does, delay until the next day and we can figure out a solution. For the next diplomatic mission, invite the delegates riding and I will help you not to make a fool of yourself.”

“What about the War Council?”

Sleipnir had finished his apple and was currently nudging Thor for another, already wise enough to know that Loki could not be convinced by his wide green eyes.

“Tell Sif that if she is so concerned, she should accompany you. You mentioned that Tyr would like her on the council in the future so he will support it. All the other old rotters will be so scandalized by having a woman in their midst that they will ignore your blunders.”

It sounded like a plan. Except, “What if there is something urgent and I decide wrong?”

“If there is some urgent matter, make an excuse and use the hammer to come to me.”

Thor nodded. This could work. If only the other matter was so easily dealt with.

After a moment spent indulging Sleipnir in another apple, Thor finally worked up the courage to say, “Mother tried to put a spell on me.”

“You probably should have let her. I am here to help you with spells, but she doesn’t know that.”

“No, I mean against my will.”

Loki paused, looking skeptical. “Are you positive? Magic is not your strength. It could have been indigestion.”

“It was a compulsion spell. The feeling was what you showed me the anklet would do if someone tried such a spell on me.”

“Maybe you were about to make a crucial mistake and she wanted to stop you before you ruined another alliance.”

If Frigga had favored Loki, Loki had been just as devoted to his mother. Thor hated to force him to question that devotion, but he could not give up on this. “No, it wasn’t to get me to speak. We were alone. I think it was to make me forget.”

Loki tensed, his hands tightening in Sleipnir’s mane until the small horse whinnied and bucked him off, running over to Thor, who comforted him. “What did she want you to forget?”

“That is what is confusing, brother. She was worried about you, talking about special vulnerabilities and knowledge that could harm you. I asked if she meant secrets and she pretended it was all her worry and paranoia and nothing for me to be concerned with. That’s when she said I should just forget it, but she said it with a _push_.”

Loki nodded. “I have long suspected that Father and Mother have been keeping a terrible secret from us. Sometimes when they watch me, they are wary as a parent should not be of their child. They suspect me of something and I don’t know why.”

“Mother would have you on the throne,” Thor pointed out. She couldn’t be so suspicious if she felt that way. 

“Yet she has never brought it up with father. And when have you ever known mother to give in without at least an argument? No, there is another reason. She loves me, but she distrusts me.”

Loki looked so sad that Thor could not help but embrace him, whether it was welcome or not. Loki half smiled into Thor’s shoulder, letting Thor run a hand through his silky black hair as he had not done since childhood. 

“We will figure this out, brother,” Thor vowed.

Loki turned to him them, his eyes shining. “Do you ever think that maybe they are keeping this secret for a reason, that maybe it is as dangerous as mother fears?”

“When has that ever stopped you from lusting after knowledge you do not have?”

“True. I want to know it even if it will destroy me. But you? Haven’t you always been content to leave father to his machinations?”

“It is a world of shadows, brother. You said so yourself.”


	10. Denouement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor and Loki have changed in the past year, but their history still stands between them.

Loki’s plan worked remarkably well, though Thor probably should not have been surprised, considering that Loki’s plans usually achieved their objectives. It was the aftermath that tended to be the problem.

Frigga had readily agreed to Thor taking a more backseat role at Royal Audience. Thor wondered why he’d never gotten his mother to agree to much of anything before now. She loved him, but if she disagreed, Thor could not persuade her the same way that he could his father. Loki explained that it had to do with humbleness and empathy. Frigga did not appreciate Thor’s arrogance or his frustration with things that did not come easily to him, but if he showed her vulnerability instead, her instincts as Thor’s mother were to help him not chide him. The number of boring lessons did not decrease, however.

After Thor had successfully taken the Princess of Dismail on a horseback ride (and managed to get nowhere close to creating future heirs), Frigga had proposed that Thor be allowed to take the actual ambassadors out to the tour the Iridium mines on the far plain. 

Frigga and Thor’s friends still puzzled over how much time he spent with the horse, but now that Thor knew the truth, it was even more difficult to pry him away from his brother. Not only was this the closest Thor had ever felt to Loki since they were children, but he certainly wasn’t going to miss a moment of Loki’s conspiratorial smiles or the fond look in his eyes as the two of them watched Sleipnir curiously explore the world. 

Above all, Thor relished having Loki’s full attention. Well, he shared Loki’s attention with Sleipnir, but before his pregnancy, Loki had usually been knee deep in a handful of different schemes and machinations. He was involved in politics and devoted considerable amount of time to magic and though he would willing drop everything if Thor had a serious need, he rarely had time for his brother. Compared to the Loki of a year ago, the time Loki took to nurse or teach Sleipnir barely absorbed a fraction of Loki’s considerable intelligence. Thor felt almost drugged by the glut of his brother’s intense attention and even began to understand why Loki enjoyed the intricacies of politics (even if Thor would probably never enjoy it himself).

“It’s all about balance,” Loki said from where he was lounging with his head against Thor’s belly while they looked up the trunk of one of the giant fir trees near the south wall. Sleipnir slept a great deal, prompting Loki and Thor to pause in the game of hide and chase they had been playing with Sleipnir. The little horse had tired himself bounding awkwardly between the trees, looking behind every one methodically. Thor didn’t believe it to be very horse-like behavior, but took great pleasure in running up behind Sleipnir to gently pull on his tale before chasing after him.

“I thought politics was about gaining advantage, not balance,” Thor mused, running his hand through Loki’s now-long hair. He wondered if his brother would cut it before he returned to the palace.

Loki chuckled. “I didn’t say it was a fair balance. Of course you want to tilt the scale in your favor, but you need to balance your objectives against the objectives of those in the position to allow you to achieve them. The correct balance is you achieving what you want for as little as you can possibly give away in order to get it. In order to do that, you have to understand what the other person wants, obviously. But more importantly, you need to understand what it is you want.”

Thor chuckled. “That is easy, brother. I want peace and prosperity for the kingdom.”

Loki pushed up from his comfortable position reclining against Thor just so he could give Thor an expression of wondering disdain. “Oh, Thor, sometimes it’s a wonder you can manage to feed yourself with a mind so simple. Peace is temporal and ultimately unsustainable. You must decide when and with what intensity you will fight a war. Will it be a brief war to preempt a future deadly one? Will it be an epoch of peace until the system dissolves into anarchy in the far future? Will it be bloody as a deterrent for those who might think to cross you? Or will you show mercy even when your troops scream for blood so that you need not fight to genocide? And prosperity, there’s the joke. Prosperity for whom at the cost of what? What does it even mean and how will you achieve it? The objectives of a king must be nuanced. They must cover the short and the long game, they must consider the tools at the king’s disposal and the people who will be affected by them, and most of all they must be intimately linked with realism, not dreams. How father ever expects you to rule is beyond me. He would be wiser to put Sleipnir on the throne.”

Thor shoved Loki away from him, suddenly irritated by his constant jabs at Thor’s intellect. It had been going on since they were children and sometimes Thor found it amusing, but he wasn’t a backcountry dullard. He was the crown prince and he’d devoted a considerable amount of time to study. So he mostly studied when forced, it was still study. And he was trying to learn how to rule, even subjecting himself to mother’s horrid lessons. He was trying and he was tired of getting dumped on by his mother, Tyr, his friends, half the court and now Loki, who was supposed to be his ally in this. 

Thor tackled his brother back into the bed of pine needles that spread like a blanket between the roots of the great tree and moved to straddle him. He expected Loki to fight back, using his magic to cast Thor off him, but instead he winced, moaning.

Thor immediately stood, worried.

“Valhalla, Thor,” Loki gasped, pushing himself up painfully in order to rest back on one of the tree’s roots, “Need I remind you that I just gave birth to an eight-legged horse only two weeks ago?”

Thor frowned. There didn’t look to be anything wrong with Loki and, with his magic, Loki usually healed quickly. “Is something wrong? You should not still be injured.”

Loki sighed. “I won’t go into the magic involved in transformation, but there are two relevant points. One, constantly transforming as I have been takes a good deal of magical energy that I might otherwise devote to healing. Two, my form of shapeshifting is not mere illusion or simply converting matter to energy and back again, but more a holding of several different physical possibilities at once. One manifestation is at the forefront interacting with the physical world, but consciousness, as vast and multi-dimensional as it is, inhabits all forms simultaneously. Thus, when I am a horse, I am myself as a horse. But if I wanted to be Volstagg, for example, I would have to do so using illusion, because Volstagg already exists as Volstagg.”

Thor frowned. He remembered briefly studying transformations in their sorcery lessons. Loki had asked endless questions while Thor composed a war ballad of his imagined future battles and drew pictures of dragons on his scroll until the spellmaster finally dismissed him. Thor had never paid attention to the spellmaster because he would never be a sorcerer and Loki would be around to help him if he needed one, but he now realized that the object of the lessons had never been to make him a sorcerer. They were probably never even meant to teach Loki how to perform magic, based on the spellmaster’s surprise at his brother’s enthusiasm for the topic. No, the point had been to learn exactly what Loki was trying to teach him now: the limits of the uses of magic in case one needed to use it or faced an enemy who wielded it. Thor really should have listened better to all the tools his parents had tried to give him.

“Have I lost you?” Loki asked, a small amount of bitter distaste in his tone. Loki usually acted amused by Thor’s lack of understanding, but every once in a while he seemed to actively resent it.

“I was not raised by swampbeasts,” Thor snapped. “I do understand basic concepts when explained to me, brother.” 

Loki had a look that said he had a hundred ‘Thor is stupid’ jabs waiting to be released from his poisonous mouth, but was refraining from doing so only because the implication was too obvious for his insults to be clever. When the horse gave Thor that look he’d found it cute, but on Loki it made Thor want to punch something - namely Loki.

“I liked you better when you couldn’t talk,” Thor complained.

A brief hurt flashed across Loki’s face only to be replaced with a sneer. That, too, was a familiar expression. The only difference was now it hurt Thor to see it.

“Of course you preferred me at your mercy and helpless.”

“You were hardly helpless, Loki. Even as a horse you had me doing your bidding, as always. You didn’t even have to lie or manipulate me in order to achieve it.”

Even though so far as Thor could tell, Loki hadn’t bothered manipulating him since he’d regained his ability to shift forms, the old hurts still stung. Sometimes Thor felt like nothing more than a warpiece for Loki to move around his tactical board. Even worse, sometimes Thor felt that Loki did it all for his own amusement and not even for a concrete advantage. With his brother absent, Thor had spent hours remembering how sweet and protective Loki could be when the mood struck. He’d missed his brother so terribly that he’d conveniently forgotten all the times Loki had been absolutely horrible to him. He’d trapped Thor in a well with a serpent for two whole days and manipulated Thor into believing he had a romantic rendezvous in a dark tower only to find Volstagg there instead of the maiden whose sweet letters Thor had grown to love. And there was the time that Loki lied and managed to make Thor look responsible for losing a crucial battle, causing Odin to banish him from the front for weeks. For every time the brothers had been united in mischief, there were two times that Loki made the mischief at Thor’s expense.

Then it occurred to him. Loki, having gained Thor’s trust as a horse, had Thor begging him for every little scrap of advice. He didn’t need to manipulate Thor further and he didn’t need to lie. He already had complete control and how long could Loki hold such power before using it to his advantage? He’d just said that balance wasn’t meant to be fair and so far as Thor could tell, such politics ran thick in Loki’s blood. He could help Thor with one hand and push him down with the other. Thor had to remind himself that Loki’s absence had been unwilling and not some act of defiance meant to lose him the throne. He was now in the position to force Thor into such a grave mistake that would guarantee that Thor would not be considered. It could also set him up for a heroic return. Not long ago, Thor had been convinced that he did not want to be king and that Loki would both enjoy and excel at it much better, but Thor wanted a fair chance at the throne. He deserved that much, at least.

All those nights spent sleeping under the stars with the horse and magic pulsing all around him had done something to Thor. It had made him weak with self doubt and forgetful of this horrible feeling of powerlessness - a warpiece being pushed around a tactical board by an invisible cue. Thor had shown Loki the ultimate vulnerability by sharing all his secrets with the horse (including how much he loved and missed Loki himself) and now all his brother could do was insult him? Lure him into false trust with the innocence he’d displayed as a horse? Even though Thor trusted that it had never been Loki’s intention to spend 11 moons as a pregnant mare, he knew that his brother rarely found himself in a situation he didn’t try to take advantage of.

The anger built in him until before he knew it, Mjolnir was in his hand and his face was a breath away from Loki’s. Thor took great gasping breaths with rage, barely restraining himself. Eventually he put the hammer down, knowing that he could never use it against his brother, but his hands still itched with the need for violence. 

Loki’s eyes met his with his usual defiant stare. Thor had bested Loki thousands of times on the training fields. He’d drawn blood in their personal quarrels and even put Loki in the healing chambers on multiple occasions, but his brother never showed fear when confronted with Thor’s anger. Half the time he seemed pleased to have caused it and some of those times, Thor’s temper had been the object of his scheming all along.

This time, Loki didn’t look smug, but before Thor could puzzle out his expression, he felt a furry nose pressed into the back of his neck. He turned to find Sleipnir staring at him expectantly, as if wondering what new game his uncle had invented. Just like that, Thor’s anger subsided. He pulled Sleipnir to him, scratching behind his big ears and letting him chew at his cape where it was attached to his shoulder.

Loki watched them for a moment, the fond smile he usually reserved for Sleipnir’s antics completely absent.

“As I was saying,” Loki continued as though moments ago Thor had not been on the verge of striking him, “having my consciousness inhabit multiple bodies at once means that I still experience that hurts of one body or another even if no evidence appears on the one I currently occupy. In my horse form, my udders are sore from feeding Sleipnir and the labor nearly killed me, so it is no surprise that I would still be feeling the effects.”

That was when the guilt hit. Thor had been about to strike his brother when he was still recovering from near-fatal trauma. 

“It did not seem so horrible to me,” Thor replied.

“If I were an ordinary horse, without my magic, I most certainly would have died,” Loki replied cooly, as though his near death were no more than comment on the Misheim Ambassador’s cheese collection. 

Thor was still in Loki’s space, enough to cup the back of his neck. “I am glad you had your magic, then. And I am sorry for my outburst earlier.”

Loki shrugged. “I’ve spent a thousand years dealing with your temper, Thor. One year of its absence is not enough to untrain me.”

That was the heart of it, Thor supposed. They had been locked into their respective roles for a thousand years. If they wanted to change, it would take considerable effort. 

“And I have spent a year without your insults and your lies.”

Loki looked away, but did not apologize. Maybe it was futile. Even if Thor fought the training of years in order to change, there was no guarantee that Loki would as well. 

Thor cupped Loki’s cheek and forced his brother to meet his eyes. “I did not enjoy you as a horse because you were helpless. I enjoyed you as a horse because I had no need to mistrust you. You did not hide your vulnerabilities and you were stronger in my eyes for it. You could not lie and I would fight monstrous sea creatures and drug princes and abandon my responsibilities to explore the hidden wonders of the world at your mere indication. You speak of balance, but the minimum I will trade for my complete cooperation and trust is for you to give me the same.”

Loki gulped. His green eyes seemed fathomless, coated over with moisture as though he were on the verge of tears. "And when I give you that, you will have all of me, irrevocably. You will have the power to hurt me and to manipulate me with your knowledge." Loki whispered it as though it were some great secret, petting Sleipnir absently where the foal had inserted himself between them.

Thor laughed. "Oh, brother, you have always had those powers over me. I have rebelled occasionally, but my life has not been worse for you scheming to possess the secrets of my soul. And even if you did give me everything - the key to every lock, a map to every treasure that you guard so jealously - what makes you think that I would have the skill or inclination to use them? What have I done to make you distrust me?"

Loki broke from Thor's grip, hanging his head in shame. "Nothing," he rasped. "In truth, brother, you have not shown a drop of guile or a hint of dishonesty to make me distrust you. It is in my nature, I suppose, a tortuous poison that I cannot be rid of. That is the first key I will give you. Maybe later, I will give you the map that shows you why."

Thor smiled. Loki had been open with him, genuine the way the horse had been, without a miasma of lies and stratagems hanging around him.

Loki looked slightly alarmed at Thor’s face-splitting smile. “That is all you shall get for now, brother. I will save your from glutting yourself on my secrets. I will consider your proposal and perhaps we, like two kingdoms formerly at war, will find our way to alliance.”

Thor groaned. “Loki, you know that I am terrible at diplomacy.”

“But you are learning,” Loki smiled, mischievously and happy. “I trust that you will come out of these negotiations with some benefit.”

“If that is the case, I shall eagerly await your next diplomatic overture.” Thor couldn’t help himself, he drew Loki to him for a swift brotherly kiss.

When he pulled back, Loki seemed almost to be blushing, but before Thor could tease him about it, Sleipnir started to squirm between them nudging suggestively at Loki’s crotch.

Loki giggled. “Sleipnir, my love, you have not yet learned Aesir anatomy. Not only is there no udder there, but you are looking entirely in the wrong place.” Loki stood, easily shedding the simple tunic he had no doubt stolen from one of the poor stable hands for some imagined slight against him in his horse from. “If you’ll excuse me, brother, the little one demands his meal.”


	11. Interlude:  Sif Snoops

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sif and Volstagg investigate Thor's strange behavior. Tension is brewing between Asgard and Jotunheim.

“I’m worried about Thor,”

“You’re always worried about Thor,” Volstagg complained. Volstagg had long lamented that Thor had the whole kingdom to spoil him and that Sif should worry less. “You are not his mother, you know. Sandwich?”

Sif rolled her eyes, pulling another sandwich out of her saddlebag to hand to Volstagg. They were on a quick mission to the southern marshes to check on the magic-folk there and make it known that distance from the Capital did not allow them the freedom to circumvent the kingdom’s laws. The sun was about to set and they were making camp on the grassy southern savannah.

“Don’t ruin your appetite,” Sif scolded. “Fandral and Hogun have no doubt caught us a magnificent beast for tonight’s supper.”

“My appetite is too grand to fall into ruin,” Volstagg replied, but settled down, helping Sif erect the tents. “But, even though I doubt there is anything wrong, what is it that has you concerned about the prince this time?”

“His behavior at court has changed.” Sif dug into the rich dirt with her dagger in order to prepare a fire pit for whatever it was Fandral and Hogun were hunting. 

“Yes, he has not caused a disaster in a little over a moon,” Volstagg laughed. “Our prince is learning. Quick, warm the cannons and gather the troops; he must be stopped!”

Sif rolled her eyes. She preferred it when Volstagg was too busy shoveling food down his gullet for sarcastic commentary. But of their fighting unit, Volstagg was Sif’s closest friend. Fandral’s views on women, while somewhat tamed by Sif’s presence, still ranged from amusingly offensive to downright hurtful. And though Hogun and Sif were near undefeatable partners in battle, he was not much for company. Sif sensed a kinship in Thor, but despite his warm nature and the centuries they had fought together in the field, their station forced both princes to be aloof. They were not equals and their friendship had limits. No, Thor and Loki would always be closest to each other if for no reason other than the fact that their royal lineage divided them from everyone else. 

Sif wondered if all of Thor’s strange behavior was simply because he missed his brother. That he ached for Loki was not in question, but the business with the horse was such a bizarre reaction to it that Sif couldn’t help but think there was more afoot. “Thor was gone a terribly long time without explanation. And he has been sneaking off ever since.”

Volstagg shrugged. “He is under a lot of pressure. Thor has always suffered from a kind of claustrophobia. He does not like to remain still and he rebels at being confined. Perhaps it is merely a way to escape court politics. But you said he had been acting strange only lately and the sneaking off has been happening since his return.”

Sif both appreciated and hated it when Volstagg turned his full focus on a problem. He was eerily perceptive. “It is not that he is suddenly making all the right decisions at court, though you must admit that the change has been abrupt.”

Volstagg grunted in acknowledgement.

“It is that his manner of making such decisions is so frightfully odd. He invited me to the Warriors Council.”

“I meant to ask, how is that?”

“Exhausting. I spend half my time fighting to be heard by those old bags of bones and the rest trying to ignore the way they stare at my chest as though they are checking their reflections in my breastplate. My presence is no doubt a purposeful distraction by Thor in order to keep them from noticing his odd behavior.”

Volstagg frowned. “What do you mean?”

“He never makes a decision the same day the discussion is brought up. Even simple things like how much battle gear to commission when we are presented with a new design. If it is near the end of the session, he says that we don’t have enough time to discuss it. If it is at the beginning, he will ask my opinion on something unrelated but controversial and the council will waste the meeting away arguing with me.”

Having finished digging the fire pit, Volstagg retrieved a long metal chain from his riding satchel. Years ago, when Thor and Volstagg had almost burned half the east plain down trying to cook dinner, Loki had enchanted the chain to contain fire. By arranging it in a circle around the fire pit, not a spark could escape into the dry grass that surrounded them.

“It’s a good strategy. It gains him time to think. I often do the same. If a difficult question is asked, I eat a sandwich and drink some mead. I cannot be expected to answer while I chew.”

“I knew there were hidden motives to your appetite!” Sif teased. “But surely Thor, of all people, does not need more than a sandwich of time to think on an issue. His actions rarely stop to consult his brain, let alone a whole night of contemplation.”

“You are right about how he acts always from the heart. And if his hand needs staying he relies on you or Loki to intervene. It is a training sword that enables his brashness. I wager that we have never actually seen Thor consider something deeply before,” Volstagg pointed out. “Perhaps he is so out of practice that it takes hours? We should be glad that he is learning the art of thought before action.”

“Or, alternatively,” Sif poked Volstagg in the belly for emphasis, “Thor is not contemplating anything at all, but rather sneaking away to find separate council.”

“So now you heed the wild theories of the weaving women?” Volstagg laughed. “I never thought I would see the day.”

Sif rolled her eyes, grabbing a hatchet from her saddle and walking towards the small grove of trees near their camp to search for firewood.

“I do not believe Thor is enchanted by some evil force. Especially now that he makes good decisions. But he is not clever enough for to carry on these machinations on his own and he remains a terrible liar.”

“How so?”

“The other day, we received word of suspicious activity on Jotunheim. It was not a matter that Tyr would ever allow Thor to pass on to the next meeting. We needed to decide whether to send a war party to investigate or to simply have the sentries do it. Tyr and I did not want to send more men, but the rest of the Council did. You know Thor; there is no way he would have allied with me on this. Even when we play Stratagem he never ignores an opportunity to send more warriors, despite how many times Loki beats him using practically the opposite strategy.”

Volstagg and Sif chuckled. The both remembered fondly the time that Thor had wagered Loki that he would climb one of the great fir trees naked and covered in the honey that attracted Jujubies that he could beat him at their current game of Stratagem. Despite the fact that Thor had been ahead when he made the wager, they all enjoyed Thor’s cursing as he climbed the tree the next day.

“I thought that Tyr and I would be easily overruled, but in the middle of Tyr’s impassioned speech on the matter, he stood up and claimed he needed to relieve himself and did not return until Tyr and Ve were settling the matter by fistfight, at which point he convinced us all to send a spymaster in the form of a Jotun beast instead. He was uncharacteristically eloquent. When I confronted him about it later, he dismissed me without a glance and went straight to the stables.”

“It is unlike Thor to be dismissive,” Volstagg acknowledged.

“And even more unlike him to keep secrets.”

“So what do you plan to do, Lady Sif? He may be our friend, but Thor is a prince and now acting as the sovereign. He is fully entitled to his eccentricities. Valhalla knows that Odin has eccentricities enough.”

“I plan to follow him and find out what he’s hiding.”

“And if he catches you?” Volstagg and every member of their unit had learned to fear Thor’s rage. It was as swift and uncontrollable as a bolt of lightning and no more so than when he felt betrayed.

“He won’t,” Sif replied. “You know as well as I that in the heat of battle, Thor can sense an enemy so much as thinking about drawing a weapon, but in everyday things he wanders around like a grassbear, completely oblivious and vulnerable to ambush. You and Loki have used it enough times to play tricks on him.”

“Ah, but if Thor is truly conspiring with someone smart enough to orchestrate these grand schemes as you are claiming, then it is that person you must look out for.”

Sif considered it a moment before nodding to herself decisively. “That is a good point, Volstagg. That is why you are going to help me.”

***

“I need to be less gullible,” Volstagg swore to himself as he stripped off his armor and began smearing the concealing paste Sif had purchased from a Vanir sorceress all over himself. “I need to be less affable. Less willing to help.” Less prone to give in when Sif’s wonderful meat pies were on offer. Sif couldn’t weave or sew and was more likely to smack a man that do anything remotely ladylike, but she was a fine cook when so inclined. 

Whenever there was scheming afoot, Volstagg always got stuck doing the dirty work. Hogun was incorruptible, Fandral too much of a gossip to be trusted with a secret, and Loki and Sif were prone to be the schemers themselves. Thor also made a good partner in crime, but he was currently the target.

Sif claimed that she could not do this because Thor always left for the stables immediately after the meeting of the War Council and she would not have time to apply the magical paste, but Volstagg suspected that it was just that she did not want to smear the gold-colored goop all over herself. It felt like boar grease and would most likely be impossible to wash out of his chest hair later. 

After Volstagg had covered most of his body, he said the incantation as instructed. It didn’t cause invisibility, but rather discourage observation. There was no way to verify it worked other than ask another person. But without Sif there weren’t any other people around to ask. Volstagg supposed that he’d know when Thor showed up and if it didn’t work, Thor would probably forget to asks what Volstagg was doing because he’d be too busy laughing at Volstagg standing there naked and covered in golden grease that mismatched horribly with his red hair.

Volstagg wished, not for the first time this year, that Loki were around. Loki would have said a few words and flicked his hand in a way that rendered Volstagg invisible and grease-free.

Mission complete, Volstagg wandered out of the barn where Sif and the warriors three kept their horses and down the lane towards the royal stables. Thor’s horse and the eight-legged foal were in the main pasture with the retired horses and the nursing mares. Volstagg couldn’t help but smile at the way the dapple grey foal raced the other little ones, seemingly oblivious to the four extra legs he held in advantage over them. He kept stopping to look over his shoulder, surprised when they couldn’t keep up. 

The little horse looked so confused that Volstagg had to chuckle. While there was no indication that the other horses heard him, the foal’s ears perked up and he swerved to look directly at Volstagg. The concealing paste was supposed to divert attention from sound as well, but there was no doubt the foal had heard him. It trotted over, trying to nudge at Volstagg through the beams of the fence.

Volstagg stepped back, eyeing the foal. They had all been down here to see it not long after the birth. Thor had beamed like a proud father when he introduced them. The foal had been shy then, hiding behind its mother or Thor, but now it had clearly grown curious at the world. Volstagg resisted the urge to reach out and pat the little guy, not wanting his concealing paste to rub off. 

Volstagg’s hesitance did not stop the foal’s fascination or keep its mother from cantering over and staring Volstagg down with her intense green eyes. Thor had gone on for moons about how intelligent his horse was. Volstagg had dismissed it as prideful posturing at the time, but when he looked into the glaring eyes of the white horse, Volstagg saw a near Aesir intelligence there. He shuddered, stepping away from the pasture to wait for Thor’s arrival under a nearby oak tree.

He supposed the paste was not meant to work on animals.

It did not take long for Thor to come bounding down the lane looking carefree and happy - the way that he used to look during training or at a feast in the great hall. Thor rarely showed that look around his friends anymore. When he was in the palace, he was pensive and troubled by the myriad problems of rule and he spent all his time outside the palace with the awful horse that was still giving Volstagg a death glare.

Volstagg immediately dropped the apple he had been eating, not knowing if Thor would see a floating apple of if it would be shielded by the concealment magic. Volstagg’s job was to follow Thor and the horse, but not get close enough to whoever Thor’s contact was so that he might be seen. If the other person were skilled at magic, they would be able to see through the spell up close. A very skilled sorcerer would just see Volstagg covered in gold paste no matter how far away he was, so Volstagg needed to keep careful watch.

Thor walked right by Volstagg, but that wasn’t a surprise. They all knew that Thor could not manage the most basic of spells. Even Volstagg had a few under his belt. They mostly had to do with hunting, cooking, and putting on his armor quickly, but Volstagg took pride in his knowledge nonetheless. 

Thor opened the gate to the pasture and the eight-legged foal ran to him immediately, running around him in circles and nuzzling him before Thor finally managed to catch it and scoop it up in a great pile of limbs. 

“I have missed you much, Sleipnir!” Thor laughed before putting the foal back on the ground. It ran back and forth between its mother and Thor as the mare ambled over. Even though she walked to great Thor, her eyes stayed on Volstagg, glaring.

Volstagg forced himself to ignore the apprehension that her glare aroused in him. He was invisible to Thor, which was really the important part.

Thor was now petting his horse, gently detangling her long white mane and smoothing the dust from her coat in a manner that looked more like a caress than grooming. Point one for Fandral’s theory of secret bestial love. Volstagg sincerely hoped that would not be what he witnessed when they walked into the woods this day. He psychologically prepared himself for the possibility anyhow.

Nothing could have prepared him for what happened next, however. “Brother, you would not believe what happened in Royal Audience today.”

Did Thor say brother? Volstagg decided he must have misheard.

The horse did not acknowledge the statement. Of course she didn’t. She was a horse. She didn’t even follow Thor out of the pasture.

But then Thor nudged her. “Loki, come on.” Volstagg hoped that Thor has just decided to name the horse Loki due to some misplaced guilt about not finding his brother. “I have much to tell you. Sif returned from the sorcerers of Vanaheim this morning with our transformed spymaster. He is indistinguishable from one of those Jotun beasts that they keep in the palace there. He is to leave tomorrow and I am in need of your counsel . . .”

Thor was cut off by the horse biting him.

“Brother, I thought you had stopped that after you gave birth. There is no need to bite. We will be by our waterfall soon enough.”

The horse nudged Thor again and looked directly at Volstagg, who scrambled up and tried to hide behind a tree.

Thor followed the horse’s gaze, squinting. “There’s nothing there, Loki. Come on. We don’t have much time until sunset.”

As much as Volstagg hoped for another explanation, the evidence was irrefutable. Thor wasn’t in love with the horse - he thought the horse was his brother. Volstagg didn’t relish the thought of persuading the prince to get help from mindhealers. This whole spy business had been Sif’s idea. She’d just have to do it. No amount of meat pie would convince Volstagg on this occasion. 

Volstagg made to follow Thor and his horse down the lane, but then the horse did the unexpected and nudged Thor towards the saddle racks. 

“You want me to ride you?” Thor asked. “I thought you were still sore from the birth.”

The horse whinnied. It was definitely communicating with Thor and it had enough of a personality to scare Volstagg. He supposed he could see why Thor might decide that an unusually intelligent horse was his missing brother. It was crazier than a bag full of thraberbeasts, but slightly less insane than thinking that of an ordinary horse.

After more prodding by the horse, Thor had put the saddle on and was climbing onto the horse’s back. Volstagg cursed his lack of foresight, for when Thor and the horse galloped away, the foal not far behind, he had no means to follow them.

Volstagg trudged back to the castle and to their private training area where he could wash off the infernal golden grease. After far too long under the hot water, he emerged to find not only Sif, but Hogun and Fandral waiting for him in their gathering room. 

Fandral laughed, pulling out a handkerchief to wipe some lingering gold grease from behind Volstagg’s ear. 

“I thought we were going to keep this between the two of us,” Volstagg complained to Sif. If the whole group was involved, it only made sense to send Hogun to do the snooping. Other than Loki, he was the best at stealth. And Fandral probably would have relished wandering around the woods naked. Not to mention he had less hair to get the stupid grease stuck in. 

“Well, the matter has become more urgent,” Sif replied. “Though our spymaster has not returned, the sentries have reported more disturbing news from Jotunheim. King Laufey has not been seen in the palace in some time and neither have his top lieutenants. The Council has proposed sending an investigation. Thor has suggested we sleep on the decision, as always, but if he is indeed being controlled by an external force, we must find out before he is allowed to make this decision. Sending additional troops, even a small group, could cripple our goodwill with the Jotuns.”

“It’s not an external force we should be worried about,” Volstagg mumbled. In truth, he felt uncomfortable bringing up Thor’s insanity to the entire group. Thor was like a brother to Volstagg and he deserved to have his dignity intact. But if what Sif said was true, he had no choice but to act. They couldn’t trust someone with such mental instability to lead.

“Then what did you discover?” Sif demanded.

“Thor thinks that his horse is Loki.”

“What?!” Fandral exclaimed, jumping out of his chair. “It cannot be.”

“I saw it with my own eyes. Thor called the horse both brother and Loki and talked to it as though it were a person.”

“I talk to my horse sometimes,” Fandral scoffed. “It’s natural. The beasts are soothed by it.” He looked to Hogun for support, who nodded. “I talk to my horse as well.”

“No, not like that,” Volstagg protested. “Thor did not just talk to the horse. He _listened_ as though it had the authority to make decisions for him.”

“I refuse to believe it,” Fandral replied. “Maybe he was playing a prank on you. Maybe the concealment did not work and he knew you were there all along.”

“Thor keep a serious face when I was standing there naked and painted gold? I think not.”

“Maybe it’s a special horse,” Hogun offered.

“Of maybe it is Thor that’s _special_ ,” Volstagg argued. “Maybe it’s all just getting to him - the Odinsleep, palace responsibilities, the fact that he couldn’t find Loki in a whole season of searching.”

“Are you suggesting that he has somehow lost his mind?” Hogun asked, frowning and disdainful.

Volstagg stiffened. “I’m suggesting that maybe Thor, at the moment, does not have the . . . facilities to lead us into a potential conflict with Jotunheim.”

Fandral stood, hand on his sword. Of all the warriors, Fandral had always been the most loyal to Thor. Volstagg suspected it was because Thor and Fandral had once been lovers, or it could just be the strange sense of ‘chivalry’ that Fandral had picked up while mucking around on Midgard. He’d also picked up a strange hat and a love of wearing tights at the time. “What you speak of is treason.”

Volstagg shrugged. “Report me to the queen, then. Half the kingdom is already worried about his behavior. She will take my side.”

“There should be no taking sides!” Fandral spat. “You swore an oath to the crown and to your prince.”

“I did not swear an oath to follow into battle a man who thinks his horse to be his brother. Thor is my prince and my friend and what we need to do is to help him recover from this foolishness, not pretend all is normal.”

Fandral withdrew his hand from the hilt of his sword in order to pace nervously. “As Thor’s First Guardians and his close council, we have been afforded privileges. But don’t think for a second that if you act against him, Thor or anyone at court will suffer you. Sif, back me up on this.”

It was then that Volstagg realized how quiet the normally outspoken Sif had been. Her eyes bore into Volstagg in a way that many others found intimidating, but Volstagg was accustomed to it. 

“Sif?” he asked. “You must believe me. He was treating the horse as his brother.”

Sif raised an eyebrow. “And how do you know that Loki is not the horse.”

“The horse gave birth to a foal, Sif,” Fandral jumped in, seeming to forget that Sif was on his side of this particular argument.

“It is an eight-legged foal,” Hogun pointed out. “It was produced of magic.”

“So you’re telling me that Loki submitted to being pregnant with a horse? And he let Thor ride him around for a whole year?” Fandral scoffed. “I’d sooner believe that Thor is insane.”

“Maybe it was an accident,” Sif replied. “Remember that I used to be a blonde before Loki said he knew a spell to help smooth my hair?”

“We were young then,” Fandral said. “He was less developed in his magic.”

“Or what about that giant crater on Fliag Hill? Or the big scar on Thor’s rear from when Loki made Hogun’s dagar come alive? Loki experiments with magic and sometimes his experiments do not end in glory. It does not matter his motivation. It may even be that the real horse is somewhere else and Loki is pretending to be the horse for now. Thor’s odd behavior only started after the foal’s birth. Irregardless, the excuses to leave, the suggestion about transforming the spymaster - they all stink of Loki’s influence.”

“Fine,” Fandral admitted. “What do you suggest we do about it?”

Sif grinned. “Confront him, of course.”

Volstagg shuddered. “I’m not certain I would like Thor to know that I was spying on him.”

Sif rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to confront Thor. If it turns out he really is having a mental crisis, I don’t want to show my hand. And if Loki is manipulating him, confronting Thor will only make him stubborn and defensive.”

“Thor is always stubborn,” Volstagg pointed out.

“True. Tomorrow, I’m going to confront Loki. You will all keep Thor busy in training while I’m down at the stables.”

Volstagg groaned. Tomorrow they would either have Loki back or Sif would be the second crazy person talking to a horse.

***

Sif had bowed out of sparring practice, easily bewildering a disappointed Thor with talk of her female cycle and how she felt like eating cacapo fruit instead of beating his face to a pulp. Now, she approached the stables, determined to finally understand everything that had been happening with Thor recently.

The horse was in the pasture with the herd when she arrived. It gave her a long look before returning to the grass it had been eating. The foal showed more interest, but Sif did not have time to do much more than give it a few pats on the head before she walked back around the stables to the small house that served as quarters for the stable hands. 

A young stable boy with blond hair and freckles answer the door almost immediately upon hearing Sif’s strong knock. 

“Lady Sif!” he stammered, bowing awkwardly, “what is it you require today?”

“I have need of a horse.”

“Of course!” the boy squeaked, quickly retrieving his muddy stable shoes. “I will saddle one for you right away.”

Sif smirked. “I’m afraid I will need more than just you for this task. Please assemble your fellows and meet me by main pasture.”

“But those horses are retired or nursing, Lady Sif.”

“That may be, but I have a particular horse in mind.”

The boy’s bright green eyes widened. “You do not mean . . .”

“Yes, I mean to ride the white mare that Prince Thor brought here to foal.”

“But, that horse belongs to the prince. He would not have you ride it.”

Sif put on her most intimidating glare, narrowing her eyes at the poor trembling boy. “You would dare presume to know the wishes of the prince above one of his First Guardians? You know I serve as Prince Thor’s lieutenant in battle and I am in need of a special horse.”

“But . . . but . . . Prince Thor said . . .”

“Oh, shall we interrupt the Court then, so a stable boy can explain to Prince Thor why he has not carried out the orders sent with his second? Is the word of one war councilor not enough? Should I ask Sir Tyr to call for a vote?”

“No, Lady Sif,” the boy panted in terror. “I will call my fellow stable hands and we will retrieve the white mare for you. Though I must warn you - she does not take the bit even with Prince Thor and she has never permitted anyone else to ride her.”

Sif did not need the headache of being thrown from a horse or bitten. “I require a harness and a lead. No saddle for the moment.”

Luckily the boy was so overwhelmed by Sif’s presence that he had forgotten that she had been determined to ride the horse only moments ago. He scurried off, returning with four other boys. Not one of them could be a day over 500.

“I apologize, my lady, but the head stable hand, the healer, and two of the others are at market.”

“This will do,” Sif said stiffly, making it seem as though she was not pleased with their showing.

Each of the boys grabbed a length of rope, and one of them the halter and lead. Sif led them behind the barn and down the road so they could approach from behind the trees that formed a natural fence by the roadside. If the horse really was Loki, she didn’t want to give him the chance to escape.

She was glad for the precaution when they all broke through the trees and rushed at the side-gate to the pasture. The horse gave them one look before running at the fence, clearly preparing to leap it. 

“Stop!” Sif shouted. “You would run away and leave your child here?”

The horse stopped and turned abruptly, rushing them. A few of the stable boys dove to the side, but Sif stood her ground. “You know he still needs nursing,” Sif replied. “There is no guarantee that he will take milk from another horse or from a bottle.”

The horse stopped in front of her, staring. The eyes were a familiar shade of green, coated in a familiar cold anger. Sif began to doubt less and less that this horse was, in fact, Loki or that Loki had born the foal from his own body.

Sif motioned to one of the boys to try with the halter, but the horse reared up, knocking him back and kicking Sif in her breastplate with one of its powerful legs. Sif choked on her breath, but remained standing.

“I know what you are and I am stubborn. You know that I will expose you.” She pulled out the enchanted skystone dagar she had stolen from Thor earlier this morning. It would cut through any enchantment. “So you can either come with me willingly, or have me cut you now and we can see how you bleed in your true form.”

“Lady Sif!” one of the stable boys protested. “You cannot threaten the Prince’s horse.”

If it were an ordinary horse it could hardly be threatened at all. Sif lowered her voice, deadlier than a shout. “I see not how the affairs of the First Guardians are of concern to you.”

“I will tell Prince Thor! He loves his horse dearly. He will not be pleased.”

“Tell him, then. For now, hand me the halter and take your leave!”

The boy obeyed with shaking hands. The group backed away, but none left to report to Thor as vowed.

Sif returned her attention to the horse. “You _will_ let me put this on you and you _will_ follow me.”

The horse snorted and made Sif stand on her toes in order to secure the halter, but did not otherwise resist, even when she tugged hard on the lead. When they made to leave, the foal tried to follow, but Sif motioned for the stable boys to restrain it. It whinnied in distress, but Sif ignored it. She needed her full attention on Loki and whatever tricks he might pull.

“There’s no use in resisting,” Sif pointed out as she lead the horse down the lane towards the small pasture and barn where Sif and the warriors three left their horses if they were going to stay in the palace overnight. “I know what you are doing, trickster, and I think you will find me more forgiving when I have an explanation.”

The second Sif had closed the barn door behind her, the form of the horse seemed to flicker for a moment. It was impossible to gaze at or perhaps impossible to comprehend, but a moment later, it was not the horse standing there, but Loki, holding the halter in his hands and naked as the day he was born.

Sif did not blush. She had seen Loki naked on many an occasion - bathing in a stream after a long day’s ride or stripping out of bloodstained clothes or even on a few occasions, drunkenly indulging himself with a maiden or an attractive man while the group celebrated in the back room of a tavern. She just rolled her eyes and tossed him one of the stable blankets. It no doubt smelled of the barn, but if Loki was now spending his days as a horse, he should not complain.

“So, Lady Sif, you have unmasked me.” Loki grinned that grin that was not a grin at all, but rather a slightly unhinged threat. “What is of such importance that drives you to do so?”

Loki always knew how to push Sif to the limit of her patience and that grin combined with his loose, apathetic demeanour were enough to drive her to it. She drew her fist back and punched Loki hard in the shoulder. “That’s for lying.” She followed up with a punch to the stomach. “That’s for making your poor mother and brother worry.” She slapped him hard in the face. “And that’s for whatever you are currently scheming.” None of the punches were hard enough that Loki couldn’t easily heal the damage, but Sif felt satisfied nonetheless.

After he was sure that Sif was finished, Loki straightened, arm still clasped to his stomach. “Who says I am scheming?”

“The fact that you are controlling Thor’s every move on the War Council, sending spies to Jotunheim, hiding here as a horse!”

“I have been, yes, but I assure you that there is no scheming. Can I not simply be helping my brother to rule?”

“No,” Sif snapped. “You are Loki Silvertongue and you have never simply helped without motive in your life.” Loki had always been jealous of Thor and had always enjoyed manipulation and chaos for the sake of it. He coveted the throne and Sif would not see him lead Thor into destroying his own chances at the kingship.

After a moment glaring at each other, Loki said, “Fine. If you cannot trust my altruism, trust that it is in my best interest to remain in the favor of the man who will sit on the throne.” 

“Thor is not king yet. You have time to put in your bid for the title.”

Loki sighed. “It is not a title I want.”

“Then what _do_ you want,” Sif pleaded. “Why stay away from court so long when you knew it would cost you Odin’s favor? Why chew grass and pull Thor around like a puppet when you could be a powerful force in the Royal Court of your own right?”

Loki paused, clearly contemplating his answer, when they heard hoofbeats and a scratching at the barn door. Ignoring Sif’s protests, Loki opened it. A small grey blur on eight legs tumbled into the barn and knocked Loki off his feet in its anxiety to get to him.

To Sif’s surprise, Loki indulged the little horse, letting it settle, legs akimbo, in his lap, while he stoked and soothed it. “It’s alright, little one. I’m here. I would not leave you. You’re safe.” After the foal had calmed and was happily chewing on Loki’s hair, the trickster looked up to glare at Sif. “That was the first time we have been separated.”

Sif nodded, blankly. It was a horse and yet Loki clearly loved the thing.

“To answer your question,” Loki replied. “I left the court because I was with child,” he indicated the foal. “And I have remained away because I cannot leave him.”

It was a difficult answer to accept, but Sif believed him. “And Thor? How long has he known.”

Loki laughed. “Thor can be remarkably obtuse. He did not know until after I gave birth. I could not shapeshift before then.”

“So, you just decided that you wanted to try life as a pregnant horse?” Sif asked. There were tales told about Loki’s strange proclivities, but Sif has always put faith in her companion over the rumors.

“No,” Loki hissed. “I did a service to the Allfather and as a result, I was violently taken by a preternaturally strong stallion. Sleipnir,” he gestured to the foal now dozing in his lap, “was the result.”

Sif gulped. A part of her disliked Loki and mistrusted him, but as a woman, she had always feared exactly what Loki described. Sif could hold her own in armed battle against the toughest warriors in the kingdom, but in a contest of strength they could still overpower her and it only took a single unfocused moment for a man to get enough advantage that strength would be all that mattered. The men of Asgard were great warriors, but they were bawdy and not as enlightened as those of many realms and Sif spent most of her time walking among them at their worst. Sif fought constantly to prove that to be a woman was not a weakness, but the deep-buried fear of being violated was a weakness she could not purge.

She knelt down next to Loki and after a long moment to give him time to reject the touch, put her arm around him. “I am sorry, Loki.”

He looked at her with watery eyes that still refused to shed a tear. “Do you regret your accusations?”

Sif shook her head. “Would you respect me if I were so naive as to not suspect you, of all people, when your behavior invites suspicion?”

Loki sighed. “I suppose you are right. But, Sif, I swear to you it is not a plot. You must not tell anyone what I have done.”

“I’m afraid telling the warriors three will be unavoidable. After Volstagg spied on you and Thor . . .”

Loki smiled. “Yes, that _was_ amusing. Volstagg prowling around naked and covered in gold paste like a fool.”

“I suppose concealment paste does not work on you?”

“No. I hope you did not pay much for it.” In truth, Sif had bartered a few fine tapestries that had been gifted to her for her strength in battle. She blushed. “Even those with the weakest of magic would have seen through that spell. Of course, any magic imbedded in physical objects is weaker than magic performed by a sorceror.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Sif replied. “But what concerns me is that last night we decided that either you were masquerading as a horse or Thor had gone insane. If you do not show yourself to the warriors three they will probably try to have Thor sent to the mindhealers.”

“Which is exactly the wrong thing to have happen when we are edging into hostilities with Jotunheim.” Loki spent a moment stroking Sleipnir’s big ears, lost in contemplation. “You may tell them. Perhaps we can all go for a ride for a few days. The Jotun situation will keep and even though Thor is less insane than you imagine, he needs a respite from the affairs of court. But Sif,” he grabbed her wrist, pleading, “you must not tell anyone else, especially my parents. I . . . it is a shameful thing I have allowed to be done to me. I cannot have them know.”

Sif thought about the palace maidens and the serving girls who had been violated and how they blamed themselves for the vices of horrible men. Loki’s situation was different - he had taunted a stallion as a mare in heat, which knowingly invited violent ends. But Sif knew that the girls who blamed themselves sunk deep into places of darkness. Sif usually solved problems by punching or stabbing something or at least threatening to do so, but even if she had the skill, this was a problem without an easy solution. A man as clever as Loki would never believe that what happened was not his fault, but nonetheless it was not something he ever deserved.

“It is not shameful to do what you did for Asgard. If you had not, the builder would have taken Lady Freya and title to Midgard’s sun and the moon as recompense.”

Loki laughed. “There’s not much he could do with title to those things,” Loki replied. “Without the magic of the Casket of Ancient Winters, there is no way for the Jotun to reach Midgard without Heimdall’s permission. And even so, there is no way to move the sun or the moon or change them without magic stronger than the Jotun possess.”

“He had magic,” Sif argued. “Magic enough to disguise himself as an Aesir before he was exposed and killed.”

“There are many ways for the Jotun to conceal themselves and he was a hill-giant so would find it easier than most. But even the frost-giants have access to magics that can transform their toxic skin. The easiest is to gain the love-bond of an Aesir. And no love is strong enough to make magic on the sun and the moon.”

“Still,” Sif argued, “if he had completed the wall, such a structure built of Jotun hands could serve as a portal from Jotunheim into Asgard.”

“It’s good to see that I was not the only one paying attention to the spellmaster’s lessons.”

Sif ignored his praise, needing Loki to see that there was nothing shameful in what he did. “And if you had not acted as you did, the Jotun would have a portal and a disgusting giant would be doing to the Lady Freya what the stallion did to you.”

Loki did not meet Sif’s eyes. His gaze was still haunted and distant, his rhythmic petting of Sleipnir soothing more to himself than the horse. After a long moment, he pushed the foal from his lap and stood, grabbing Sif’s hand to kiss. “Congratulations on uncovering my secret. You are, of course, the cleverest of the lot.”

Sif smiled. “I’m afraid there is not much competition.”

They laughed and looked into each other’s eyes. Loki, for once, looked honestly grateful. And though Sif, much more than the warriors three, only really tolerated Loki for Thor’s sake, she could not help herself. She drew Loki into a tight hug. “We will keep your secret, but remember that Thor is not the only one who has missed you.”


	12. Fire and Ice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The band of warriors reunites and Thor learns magic.

“Surely it was not that bad,” Thor said, a grin on his face. He was happy to escape the palace grounds and the troubling matters with Jotunheim. He was even more excited about sharing the magnificent joy of riding down the northern plain with his brother, his nephew, and his best friends in the Nine Realms. 

Loki rolled his eyes. “She hit me!”

“Come now, brother, you know that is how Sif shows her affection. Do you truly regret seeing her?”

Loki paused a long moment in thought. “I regret that she and the warriors three now know of my condition. But, no, seeing Sif again was not a hardship.”

Thor grinned, embracing his brother and half lifting him off his feet. “You pretend to be a solitary creature, brother, but I know that you enjoy our friends.”

“ _Your friends_ , you mean.”

Thor stopped dead in his tracks, causing Sleipnir to run into him. Surely Loki did not mean that. The six of them had been a tight-knit group since their youth when they began training together. Sure, Loki was slightly younger than the boys, but so was Sif. He had started out as Thor’s annoying kid brother - too small to lift a sword and often too sickly to follow them on adventures - but he soon came to be a good warrior and an equal member of their band. In fact, as the only one capable of high levels of magic, they often relied on Loki for alternate strategies or to ease the roughness of camp. They all still teased Loki, but surely half a millennium was long enough for him to learn that he was no longer the burdensome younger brother that their father forced them to play with. 

“You don’t mean that,” Thor replied. “Volstagg and Fandral were overjoyed to hear that you had returned. And I thought I saw Hogun hiding a smile.” Thor frowned. “His lips twitched, I could swear it. Even Sif, who I know you do not always get along with, seemed excited for your return.”

“They’re just happy that you aren’t crazy. I told you I saw Volstagg attempting to spy on us, which he did poorly, by the way. They thought you were so mentally broken that you imagined your horse to be your brother.”

Thor was not good at direct argument, especially against Loki. But he could be persuasive. “If they are not your friends, then why does Hogun always claim you in sparring practice?”

“Because he doesn’t want to fight you.”

Thor ignored the protest. “And why does Volstagg help you with your many varied schemes?”

“Volstagg likes a good joke.”

“And Fandral, why does beg you like a puppy to sneak off to Midgard with him on your little adventures?”

“Because he wants someone who will blend in, not stick out like a weed.”

“And Sif? If Sif is not your friend then why does she schedule shifts whenever you are in the healing rooms so that you will not wake up alone?”

“An overblown mothering instinct.”

Thor turned to Loki, gripping both arms and staring deep into his brother’s eyes. “Trust me, brother, you were not forgotten in your long absence. You are loved.”

Loki shook Thor’s hands off and Thor let him go. He knew better than to try to restrain Loki when he was in this kind of hateful, nihilistic mood. “Loved from within your shadow, perhaps.”

“What do you mean?” 

Loki sighed. “If you have not noticed in a thousand years, you’re not going to start now.”

Thor felt distraught. He thought finally seeing Loki vulnerable instead of hiding his true feelings in nets and traps of lies and mischief would help them grow closer, but it only seemed to be succeeding in tearing Thor’s heart apart. The look on Loki’s face was one of genuine hurt. Thor remembered Tyr’s words. Had Thor been the cause of that pain? Had he been hurting Loki all along and Loki just hid it from him?

Thor stopped. They had reached the river where they would meet their friends. He sat down on a moss-covered log and pulled Loki by the hand to sit next to him. Even when they were finally sitting knee to knee, prepared for a serious conversation, Thor did not release Loki’s hand. Loki lived in a world of magic and shadows and Thor had both feet permanently stuck on the ground, but today it was Thor who needed the anchor to the physical.

“Thor, you are more than just the eldest son. The kingdom, our father, your friends, they all adore you. You are the embodiment of everything Asgard values. Your strength, your guilelessness, your perpetual good cheer, even your temper is seen as a mere indicator of your passion. I know you do not mean to be so perfect in their eyes. You just are, as though when our parents conceived you they sent the exact dimensions of the perfect prince to a tailor to have you fashioned to order.”

“But I’m not!” Thor protested. “You agree that I make a horrible king.”

Loki chuckled. “Oh, Thor, as usual, you miss the point. It doesn’t matter if you will be a great king or go down in history as the utter buffoon you are. What matters is that people _believe_ you to be great and any flaws to be merely charming. I am a prince as well, so none dare treat me with disrespect, but I cannot be your equal when you are so loved. I tried,” Loki admitted, looking down at where their hands were still twined in Thor’s lap. “I learned to be a warrior and I tried my best to act in the interests of the kingdom, but there is no use in competing. No matter how hard I try I can not beat you at a game you were simply born to dominate. So I decided to just be myself, cultivate my own talents and hope that people will see results instead of personality.”

“People do see the results. Sadly, they see the results of your pranks as well as your victories.”

Loki shrugged. “It doesn’t matter because ultimately they don’t _care_ about results, not when you are there to wave your hammer around and awe them.”

Thor wanted to protest, but Loki was right. Thor had always had the attention of the court and of their friends and parents. They looked to him as a leader and in his arrogance, he often believed himself to be one. “You cannot blame me for being who I am!” Thor protested. Even though he did feel sad that he’d never taken the chance to heal his brother’s hurt before, he could not be held responsible for the way people responded to him.

Loki considered it. “No, I suppose not. You would be who you are even if everyone hated you for it.”

“Then what do you want me to do? How can I make things better for you?”

“As all powerful as you may imagine yourself to be, I don’t think you can.”

That was what broke Thor’s heart. But, then again, Loki had always been pessimistic - quick to see the worst in people and in a situation even though the many times he had predicted Thor’s foolishness would lead them into death, it had never come to pass.

Thor gave Loki a playful punch in the arm. “I may not know what to do to fix this, brother, but I will try.” He grinned. “And know that whatever the court gossips may say, I do not see you as lesser than I. We are very different, but as these past weeks have shown, our differences compliment.”

Loki grinned a little. Normally, Loki’s smiles were consuming and manic, but this small grin was tender and Thor couldn’t help but smile back. “Admit it, brother, you enjoy the shadows.”

Before Loki could respond, they heard the clatter of hoofbeats and armor and sure enough Sif and the warriors three emerged down the path. 

Fandral was first to dismount, immediately walking up to Loki and pulling him into a quick embrace. “If it isn’t the great trickster himself!” Fandral grinned. “He who tricks gullible brothers and couples with horses!”

Thor noticed a slight twitch of annoyance in Loki’s jaw, but then Fandral pulled him in for another hug, patting his back heartily. “Oh, it is good to see you, again.”

“You had Thor in a fit of nerves when you left - like a dog without his master,” Volstagg added, picking Loki up off the ground in his enthusiasm to hug him.

“You were worried as well,” Sif said to Volstagg. “Don’t bother to deny it.” She kissed Loki on the cheek in a rare womanly greeting. 

Hogun did not say anything, but he also hugged Loki, before making his way over to Sleipnir. Hogun needed only to extend his hand before Sleipnir was nuzzling him. “So this is the little one?” Hogun asked. They’d seen him before, of course, but Thor supposed seeing the foal out of curiosity for his excess of legs and seeing him as Loki’s son were two different things. “Those extra legs don’t get in the way?”

Loki beamed. “He’s actually quite fast. He puts the other foals to shame.”

“So he will ride out with us?” Fandral asked. 

Loki nodded.

Fandral joined Hogun in his examination of Sleipnir. “He’s big. With all those legs it must have hurt like a gut wound to get him out.”

Loki scowled. “It was not a pleasant experience, no.”

“Nine moments of pleasure, nine moons of pain,” Fandral teased.

“More like three moments of pain, then eleven more moons,” Loki grumbled under his breath. It didn’t appear as though Fandral heard him.

“Though I suppose everyone needs a hobby,” Fandral continued, oblivious to Loki’s growing discomfort.

Volstagg also laughed. “I can’t imagine a hobby where I’d run around with this lump of muscle on my back.” He poked Thor. “What if you had shapeshifted back with him on top of you? How foolish that would have looked!”

“Not as foolish as you wearing nothing but gold grease and looking like a lobotomized dodo bird in molt.” Loki’s tone was cutting and angry, far more angry than the friendly teasing seemed to warrant. But then Thor thought back to their previous conversation. Maybe Loki didn’t see this as playful banter. Maybe he saw his friends undermining him.

“I’m sorry I missed that,” Fandral sighed dramatically. “We could have composed such ballads: An Ode to a Naked Fat Man; Red Hair, Gold Grease; The Spy with the Gilded Loins; Shall I Compare Thee to a Dodo Bird in Molt?”

They all laughed and some of the tension drained from Loki’s features. “It was a rather horrifying experience, Fandral. I would not wish it upon myself if I were you.”

Sleipnir had grown bored with their jokes and was now running around them, chasing a grasshopper.

“Sleipnir!” Loki called. “Don’t tire yourself. We have a great adventure ahead of us.” Sleipnir trotted obediently up to where his father crouched down and Loki calmed him with a few pats to his withers.

“He really is your son.” Fandral seemed astonished.

“I gave birth to him, so of course he is.”

“No, I mean, you treat him like your _real_ child.”

Loki stood, eyes ablaze. “He is my _real_ child. He may be a horse, but I carried him in my body for eleven months. How dare you imply that I would abandon him because his form is not familiar. He’s . . .”

Loki’s rant stopped at Sif’s calming hand on his arm. “I’m sure none of these empty-headed fools, least of all Fandral the Great Bandit of Women’s Loins, pretends to understand the bond of a mother with her child.” She glared at Fandral.

“Oh, so now the women stick together!” Fandral retorted.

Sif’s punch was swift and well-targeted, as always. “Yes, because those of us who have the honor of being able to bring forth life should be a separate category. Perhaps a weaker category? One that will not kick you in your child-giving part and punch you in the nose the next time we spar?’

Fandral, luckily, knew when he was beat. Sif did not tolerate any implication that women were the weaker sex. And now her rage seemed to extend to protect all those who could bear children. 

“Yes,” Thor mused. “As a man with small amounts of Jotun blood, I may also be able to bear children and I would _certainly_ not kick you in the seeds and then punch you in the nose the next time we spar.”

Fandral looked properly terrified now, until Thor laughed, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “Come, friends, let us ride. Loki and I have explored this country and it is wild and beautiful. I wish for you to share this beauty with me and help to give my nephew his first long adventure.”

Sif and the warriors three walked back to their horses, but once mounted, they looked at each other awkwardly.

“Forgive me, my princes,” Volstagg finally said. “We did not plan adequately and I did not think to bring the two of you a mount.”

Thor and Loki looked at each other. In truth, Thor had not thought about asking for a mount either. He’d had a horse for the past year - the perfect horse. He had not thought of riding another. 

Loki quickly hid his embarrassment with the overconfident regal expression he used when he was about to talk his way into or out of something. “You need not worry yourself, Volstagg. I think following me as a horse will better guide Sleipnir and it will not be the first time I have taken this oaf on my back. Ride on ahead and we’ll catch up to you.”

Their friends looked a little bewildered, but followed Loki’s command.

“Are you sure, brother?” Thor asked. He was eager to ride the great white horse once again (he’d missed it in the last months of Loki’s pregnancy), but he did not want to see his brother humiliated by the submission. “We could run back to the stable for more horses.”

Loki shook his head. “It’s too late now. They will think me even weaker for going back on my word. And to tell you the truth, I miss running.”

“I miss it too,” Thor said sincerely. He squeezed his brother’s arm, proud that Loki was not ashamed. 

“Would you like a saddle? I can conjure one.”

Thor shook his head. The horse had not had a saddle when Thor found her and in the months he rode her, Thor had learned not to need one. There was something exhilerating about riding bareback, a bond between horse and rider that felt unbreakable.

Loki smiled. His eyes stayed on Thor’s as he slid out of his tunic. Thor blinked and the familiar figure of the horse stood before him. When he pulled himself onto her back it felt like coming home.

***

They didn’t ride for long. The sun was lowering on the horizon and despite being fast, Sleipnir did not yet have the stamina of the adult horses. Loki made them rest frequently so he could give Sleipnir nourishing tastes of milk. The sight was common to Thor, but it clearly made the warriors three uncomfortable. Loki probably didn’t appreciate them seeing him do it either.

Before the sun set, Loki chose the place to make camp. It was an intensely turquoise glacial lake, with cold, still waters and snow capped mountains behind it. The wind blew swiftly across the plain, but the waters refused even a single ripple. The lakeshore was covered in white gravel that looked like bones just contemplating becoming sand. Thor could see why this inland sea would appeal to his brother. It was stark and a little haunting. Its strangeness sent a thrill down Thor’s spine.

They made camp under a long-dead tree in the golden grass by the lakeshore. Sif had gone to the market and purchased them the freshest fruits, including some of the golden barberries from Alfheim that had just come into season. Loki loved the berries so much that one season he had transformed himself into grassbear so he could gorge himself without needing to trade. Thor made sure to give Sif a grateful smile when Loki wasn’t looking. Hogun was a skilled fisherman and the lake was full of a particularly delicious orange trout, so he had volunteered to catch dinner. Loki had gone with him, which left Thor trying to calm an anxious Sleipnir, who paced the lakeshore nervously watching where Loki and Hogun were sitting with fishing poles on a magicked iceberg as though it were a raft. 

Sif was setting up the tents while Thor, Fandral and Volstagg worked on setting up their firepit by the lakeshore.

“So, Loki really gave birth to that horse,” Volstagg said.

“He did,” Thor assured him. “I was there the whole time.”

Fandral wrinkled his nose. “Must have been gruesome.”

“It was a very difficult birth. With a eight legs you can imagine why. It didn’t seem like it at the time, but Loki was in real danger of bleeding to death,” he admitted quietly. 

That shocked the two warriors, who paused in their work of arranging the fire logs. 

“Loki has not had an easy time this past year. I would appreciate it if you did not tease him so.”

“We tease Loki about everything. If we suddenly stop he will wonder about our sanity,” Volstagg pointed out.

“Well, don’t tease him about this or be too harsh. He hasn’t talked to anyone but me for a year. He might be overwhelmed.”

“Maybe it was easy to forget when he was an innocent white horse that couldn’t talk, Thor, but Loki is hardly defenseless,” Fandral reminded Thor. “Volstagg and I joke, we tease, but when Loki has it in him to take retribution, he can be downright cruel.”

Volstagg nodded. “Or have you forgotten how he almost ruined your first hunt?”

“Or that Sif used to be blonde?”

“Or the time Lady Freja fainted when the golden necklace she kept bragging about turned into a snake?”

“Not to mention how the servers roll dice over who must deliver food to the high table for fear of the cruel pranks he plays on them.”

“Or the time he put you in a wedding dress?”

Thor sighed. It was all true, of course. It was hard to say which came first, the teasing or Loki’s mischief. Was the teasing a way to downplay the serious power that Loki wielded, to keep him in his place? Or were Loki’s oftentimes malicious acts of mischief only cruel as a result of resentment caused by teasing? Either way, Loki hardly comported himself honorably. And he hadn’t asked for Thor to intervene anyway. He’d probably just grow resentful of Thor fighting his battles for him.

“You’ve made your point,” Thor replied. “I just ask that you leave the matter of Sleipnir’s conception alone. As funny as it seems that Loki would copulate with a horse, I assure you that it was no laughing matter. And neither was the fact that he was trapped as a horse until Sleipnir was born.”

They both nodded solemnly. 

“Concerning that exact matter,” Volstagg finally said. “You were spending all your time with him, talking to him when you thought he was a _horse_?”

“He wasn’t.”

“But you thought he was,” Volstagg pushed on. “It didn’t occur to you that was a little strange?” He exchanged a worried look with Fandral.

Thor shrugged. “I’m sure a part of me knew the horse was Loki.”

“The part that wanted to ride him,” Fandral laughed.

Thor punched him hard on the arm. “I would appreciate it if you did not tease me either.”

Fandral rolled his eyes. “Not possible, my friend. Not possible.”

“I think we’re ready,” Volstagg interrupted, gesturing to the practiced arrangement of wood and kindling. “Go ahead, light it.”

Thor looked around, remembering that he did not have his saddle and thus did not have the saddlebag, where he kept his firestarter. “Lend me your firestarter and I will.”

Volstagg shrugged, picking up a small piece of wood. He stared at it for a long moment before the tip burst into flame. He lit that main pile of kindling and they watched the fire develop.

“I’m surprised you do not know a basic fire spell,” Volstagg remarked. “It’s really quite simple and very helpful if you lose your firestarter.”

Thor blushed a little. He wasn’t ashamed of his lack of magic, but he was slightly ashamed of not having what was obviously a very basic and useful skill.

“I have had little need for magic. It is Loki’s skill, not mine.”

“Yes, we do have one of the most powerful sorcerer in the Nine Realms with us at most times, but this last year has taught us that we cannot rely on him,” Fandral explained.

“So you’re telling me you can do a fire spell also?”

Fandral smiled and snapped his fingers. A small little flame appeared to dance on the tip of his thumb like it were a candle. 

“And Hogun and Sif?”

“We all know a few spells. We’ve been practicing and trying to expand our abilities since Loki left,” Volstagg explained. “I have been learning the cooking spells. Sif has studied healing. Hogun is trying very hard to master that ice spell that Loki just used to make their ‘boat’ and other elemental spells.”

“And you?” Thor asked Fandral.

“I have been trying to create illusions. Nowhere close to Loki’s level, of course. If I could make an amorphous black cloud, I’d be happy.”

Thor nodded. It was a smart plan, to have redundancies in their skill set in case something happened to Loki (or he simply wandered off). Thor would have enthusiastically approved the effort if they had brought it up to him. “Why did you not involve me?”

Volstagg coughed, looking uncomfortable.

“You were preoccupied,” Fandral argued, an annoying pleading tone in his voice. “And you have never been the best at magic.”

Thor nodded, wondering why Fandral was using the voice he normally used to get women to lay with him. It was designed to flatter and poorly covered Fandral’s insecurities.

“It is fine, Fandral. Do you think I would be offended that you state the obvious? I have not mastered practically a single spell despite having all the same lessons as Loki, who can send a projection of himself halfway around the world and turn entire buildings into pastries if he wants to.”

Fandral grinned uncertainty. No, he was not insecure over insulting Thor’s magical ability. That left the fact that Thor had not spent much time with the warriors since Loki disappeared. Perhaps they did not include him because they had slowly stopped seeing him as an integral part of their group.

“I know I have been as involved as usual lately. But now that Loki has returned to us, once father wakes all will be as it was.”

Volstagg sighed, looking regretful. “Thor, we will always be there to fight by your side when you have need of us. But you must admit that when you are king, you will have other duties. There will be no time for the grand quests of our youth. And even in war, you will not be able to plunge yourself into battle deep within the enemy territory as you once did. You will be needed for decisions of strategy.”

“But I am Asgard’s mightiest warrior! And together we are unstoppable. It would be strategically unwise not to use us this way.”

Volstagg didn’t argue. He looked resigned when he gave Thor a hearty pat on the back. “Things are changing, my friend. They will change with or without your consent. Odin has named you his heir. You sit on the throne in his stead. Your brother is a responsible parent now,” he motioned to where Loki was stepping back onto shore, cuddling Sleipnir and reassuring him that he would always come back and the horse need not worry.

Hogun dumped a bag of fish next to Volstagg. “If you are going to eat most of them, you can clean them.”

Volstagg grumbled, but picked up the bag and walked to the edge of the lake to begin his task. Thor noted that he used a spell to flake the scales off, but filleted the fish with his ordinary knife.

“He really is learning kitchen spells,” Thor remarked.

Loki seemed to perk up, watching Volstagg. “One sorcerer is not good enough?”

Fandral laughed. “Are you really objecting to Volstagg cleaning his own meat for once?”

“No. I would be a fool to deny Volstagg the chance to sympathize with the poor palace cooks that must keep up with his appetite. But you lot have never shown any interest in magic before. I believe Volstagg dismissed it as soon as the spellmaster explained that he could not summon pastries out of thin air.”

“We started getting interested in magic when you abandoned us,” Sif remarked, pushing Loki aside so she could share the weathered log he was sitting on. 

“It was for a good cause,” Loki replied. He gazed fondly at Sleipnir, who was curiously watching Volstagg clean the fish, jumping every time Volstagg hurled some of the guts into the water and it made a splash.

“We obviously will never be at your skill level,” Sif continued. “But we’re making progress. And with the new librarian being as well-formed as she is, Fandral is on his way to becoming a mage.”

They all shared a laugh at Fandral’s notoriously single-minded motivation. 

Loki smiled slightly. “Well, I’m no shapely librarian, but perhaps you would care to demonstrate what you are learning and maybe I can give some advice.”

After Volstagg had finished cleaning the fish and they were waiting for dinner to cook, they went around in turns, showing off the spells they had already learned and complaining about those that never seemed to quite work properly.

Thor couldn’t help but smile. He’d never seen this side to Loki before. He was a _good_ teacher - patient, knowledgeable, easily able to switch approaches if his message was not understood. Combined with the tenderness with which he treated Sleipnir, Thor imagined he would make a great father to an Aesir child one day.

“I would like to know how you made us the iceberg to fish with,” Hogun requested. “It would be very useful magic if we are ever trapped against a body of water.”

Loki grinned. “That’s one of my favorites, actually.”

They all walked to the water’s edge, where Loki placed a palm on the water’s surface, closing his eyes and concentrating. Ice crystals spread out from his hand, solidifying and deepening until an area wide enough for all of them to stand was covered in ice. “It will take practice to get the thickness you need to support body weight, but the spell itself it relatively simple.”

The explanation didn’t make sense to Thor, but Hogun seemed to understand. Still, he struggled to even make the water feel colder.

“That’s strange,” Loki said. “This was one of the first spells I learned and I found is easier than all the others. But each mind is different. For me, I picture the water relaxing into its natural, most comfortable state, as though it has longed to find its place in a solid structure. But maybe your mind does not work that way. Perhaps you need to focus on feelings of rigidly.”

After much trying, Hogun was able to form a thin, almost imperceptible layer of frost. 

Loki smiled and clapped him on the back. “That’s a start. You will manage it eventually.”

“Thank you,” Hogun gave a little bow. “You have been surprisingly helpful.”

Sif also seemed surprised with how supportive Loki was, not poking fun at the way she accidentally switched two of Volstaggs toes while trying to heal his bunion, but instead examining exactly what she’d been thinking and why it lead to that result. Loki was still imperious in his pronouncements and pretentious in his manner of explaining things, but they had all expected Loki’s usual ridicule when it came to lording his intelligence over them. Clearly all one needed was to give Loki the stage and he seemed happy, almost desperate to share all that he knew.

“Thank you,” Sif smiled, leaning into Loki’s side with a sigh. “But bunions are one thing, healing a battlewound, quite another.”

“Healing magic is tricky. It is something that runs in the blood. Even if I grew a hundred times as powerful, I would not be able to manage all of the magic that Eir performs. You were a wise choice to learn these spells, Sif. Women are better conduits for healing spells.”

Sif leaned away from Loki again, scowling. But Loki held his hands up in surrender. “I’m not saying you couldn’t beat me in a fight, Sif. We all know that without magic you do so without breaking a sweat. But magic is intertwined with the physical as well as consciousness. You should be happy for the advantage your body provides. You won’t ever be able to heal a knife wound, but I think I can at least teach you how to convince the blood to remain in the body.”

All the warriors looked suitably impressed. 

“That would be wonderful,” Fandral said (probably because he was usually the one that was in danger of misplacing his blood), “but the real miracle would be if you could teach Thor.”

“Teach Thor what?”

“He couldn’t even manage to light the fire,” Volstagg pointed out.

“Thor, that was the first spell Master Freyr taught us!” Loki laughed with mock outrage. “Did you do anything at all during our magic lessons?”

Thor blushed, offering sheepishly, “I composed you that ballad you like about the two princes who battle the dragon?”

Loki rolled his eyes. “That’s a no, then. No wonder Master Freyr always seemed so frustrated when he had solo lessons with you.”

The fish had finished cooking and the group ate while Loki explained. “There are many different ways to make a simple fire spell. You’ve noticed that even among our little band, we have different methods. Volstagg uses a starter object. He heats the object itself until it it combusts. Fandral uses his own body’s magic to make his fingerprints like flints and his sweat like wax to create a candle-like effect. Hogun transforms a pocket of air into a gas that ignites with even the slightest heat. But it is Sif who you should try to emulate, because her method is more applicable to other spells.”

Usually Loki ate daintily, but in his enthusiasm to explain, he had gotten a smear of barberry juice on his cheek. Thor smiled and wiped it away with his thumb without interrupting the lecture.

Loki paused briefly to smile back at Thor before continuing. “You need to change the state of the molecules of air. To do this, you need to first develop your elemental gaze. Look not with your eyes. Close them, if you must. You need to slip beyond the visual, into the part of yourself that inhabits more than your physical form.”

“This sounds difficult,” Thor complained.

Loki smiled at him, leaning close when the others were distracted by laughing at one of Fandral’s tales of Midgard. “You know the feeling of magic, Thor. When we were riding together, we went to places where the veil of reality is stretched thin. I know you felt it. You should feel it here too.”

Thor reached out for that feeling of wonder from their long summer’s ride, but with the warriors laughing and Sleipnir nudging at Thor’s thigh and Loki so distractingly _present_ he could not seem to concentrate.

“Here, take my hands and we will find it together.”

Loki’s hands were cold and dry as always, probably because his fingers were so long and much slimmer than Thor’s. After a year without sparring practice, Loki’s palms were smooth, like Thor had only felt from the palace maidens.

“Look over my shoulder at a place about the same distance away as your height. Let your gaze unfocus so that you are not looking at any particular spot, but your eyes still do not move.”

Thor did what he said, only seeing a blurry palate of white and turquoise where the beach met the lake.

“Good. Now you want to see the elements themselves - the individual miniscule pieces that make up all of reality. I will lead you there.”

Thor felt the presence of another consciousness brush lightly up against his. It felt natural, of course. He’d known his brother all his life. They were like two puzzle pieces, both needed to make up the whole, fitting perfectly together with no overlap. It was not the keys to the secrets Loki had promised him. They would never mix, never intrude. Their differences kept them firmly in their separate domains, but Loki’s presence filled the voids, the little pockets that remained blind spots in Thor’s understanding of the world. And suddenly he was looking _beyond_. The brilliant turquoise of the lake disappeared into a world where color itself could not be, for color was a million elements arranged to reflect patterns of light. But they were looking at single waves of light, not patterns, single elements, not a vast canvas.

The elements drifted. They approached each other then repelled, drifting like balloons at a festival. They did not touch, but moved in a pattern that suggested that they might desire to mingle after all. Thor was entranced. Was this what Loki saw all the time?

He blinked and Loki’s mind was gone, leaving Thor aching in places beyond the physical.

“You saw it.” It was not a question.

Thor nodded.

“Now, to make fire, you need to imagine those elements you saw becoming agitated. They were mostly floating when you saw them, right? They didn’t react with each other. What you must do is make them so agitated that they will collide and combine.”

“How do I do that?”

Loki shrugged. “There are a lot of ways. Some imagine anger, others panic, others prefer not to anthropomorphize and just imagine speed.”

“What do you do?” Thor asked. He remembered, ashamed, that in all their many years together, he’d never asked Loki what it felt like to do magic or how he did it. He just took for granted that it was one of those things of Loki’s domain that never crossed into Thor’s.

Loki’s gaze was intense, his green eyes reflecting the still-roaring fire. “When Master Freyr first taught us - well, when he first taught _me_ \- he told me to imagine the elements were being playful and excited, jumping about like on the plants of a spring-bog. But the spell was never my strongest. I found the creation of ice much easier.”

Thor remembered all the times Loki had frozen his soup in the dining hall or encased his favorite sword in an impenetrable locker of ice. Once, when they had been fighting, Loki had even given Thor frostbite in order to force him to let Loki go. 

But now Loki used hot bursts of energy as much as he used ice when they did battle. “What changed?” Thor asked.

“I learned passion.”

Thor smiled. To all that knew them, Thor was the passionate one - easily incited to great acts of devotion or to rage. Loki was cool and frigid, living in a head full of machinations with no room for the heart. But Thor knew better. He knew his brother felt deeply even if he did not always show it.

“Passion, then,” Thor said, squirming a little with nerves.

This time, when he saw the elements, he imagined them yearning, throwing themselves at each other like doing battle or making love. They strained against the casual floating; they resented that it should be their natural state, when all they wanted was passion.

Thor came back to himself with Loki’s hand on his thigh. There was a small red-tinted fire burning in the air between them in the shape of a perfect sphere.

“I’m containing it,” Loki said with a grin. “With your hotheaded passion you would ignite this whole lakeshore. It would make Sif angry.”

Thor laughed. “And not making Sif angry is the most important reason not to let everything burn?”

“Sif is particularly hilarious when she is angry, yes, but I know you do not like it when she plots against you.”

The others had stopped their conversation when they saw Thor’s flame and now that she was listening, Sif smacked Loki on the back of the head.

“I can’t believe I actually missed you,” she complained, but the way she seemed to cuddle up to Loki belied her true affection. In fact, Thor was not sure he enjoyed a world in which Sif and Loki got along. They caused enough trouble for Thor without allying.

The warriors congratulated Thor on his first act of magic and Loki on conquering the infinite army of Thor’s woeful magical skills.

They spent the rest of the evening talking, reminiscing about their previous quests and telling each other the of all things they’d missed in the past year. Loki embarrassed Thor by relating the tale of Thor’s dalliance with Prince Seupu, which made Thor so angry that he chased him around the campsite (with Sleipnir joining in as though it were a game). Loki saved himself by running out onto the water of the lake with ice forming instantly beneath his feet to support him. In the end, Thor retaliated by relaying the story of the first time Loki had tried to make his anti-conception potion and it had ended up turning his loins the same bright blue color as a Jujubi.

Sif and the warriors three had been on quite a few quests by themselves and had many tales. Volstagg related of the story of how Fandral came running out of the hut of a giant with his pants on backwards and the grand plot they had to execute in order to steal his armor back. Another time, Volstagg and Sif had played a prank on Hogun and kept moving his favorite dagar to locations that suggested that Loki’s spell to make it sentient had succeeded after all. The created a grand romance where it kept following one of Sif’s throwing knives around until one day a bunch of little paring knives were born. In order to gain money to stay at an inn overnight when they were stranded on Alfheim due to bad weather conditions that could interfere with the Bifrost, Sif had entered a singing competition and though she’d lost badly, had gained the attention of amorous Elf who took Sif to bed but made the warriors three sleep in the barn with his goats.

After Sleipnir fell asleep in Hogun’s lap and they had all downed a considerable amount of mead, Fandral decided he would recite poetry, particularly Midgardian poetry. Thor didn’t understand why Fandral loved it so much. As far as Thor was concerned, no great lyrical epics had come out of Midgard since Fandral and Loki had returned having seen a performance at some Globe Stagehouse about the brave and honorable King Henry and his invasion of the French Realm. After Loki had recited it for Thor, he had begged their mother to stage a formal reading of it.

“Before we retire,” Fandral announced, slurring slightly. Fandral never could take his mead. “I have a poem that is particularly apropos, considering the magic we have been learning this eve. From Frostson of Midgard:” 

Some say the world will end in fire,  
Some say in ice.  
From what I’ve tasted of desire  
I hold with those who favor fire.  
But if it had to perish twice,  
I think I know enough of hate  
To say that for destruction ice  
Is also great  
And would suffice.”

Thor’s eyes automatically sought Loki’s over the smoke from the fire. Volstagg was teasing Fandral for choosing a poem that didn’t even bother having a metrical line and Sif was slumped on Loki’s shoulder, half asleep from mead, but Loki’s eyes were lively and suddenly Thor felt more awake than he had in a long time.

“Do you think that Frostson is implying that it will be the Asgardians and not the Frost Giants that will cause Ragnarok?” Sif mumbled sleepily.

“He is a Frostson, so maybe it is a point of pride for his people,” Volstagg argued.

“What happens to Midgard, again?” Sif asked. Sif had been notoriously terrible in their literature lessons, particularly in the prophetic poems.

“A great wolf swallows the sun.” Loki’s voice was a gravely whisper. He looked as though he were half in a trance. “The world is slowly coated in snow and ice until nothing survives.”

“So it does end in Ice?” Sif asked. “Do the Jotun go there?”

“No,” Thor remembered this part, “they make war on Asgard and the flames from the battle reach Midgard somehow.”

“The Bifrost?” Hogun asked. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Loki snapped. “It’s all just myth and speculation. I am going to nurse Sleipnir and then I’m going to sleep.” He cast a spell around the fire to keep any sparks from escaping and picked Sleipnir up out of Hogun’s lap to walk around the bend where he wouldn’t be seen transforming.

The rest of the group disbanded as well. Sif and Volstagg went to one tent and Hogun and Fandral to another, leaving one tent for Thor and Loki as usual.

Thor stayed watching the dying embers of the fire as they slowly extinguished.

When Loki and Sleipnir returned, they didn’t head for the tent. Instead, Loki sat down next to Thor and tucked his body against Thor’s as they looked out at the moonlight and the still lake. It reminded Thor of the day he met the horse.

Suddenly, the wind picked up, tugging at Thor’s hair and blowing a few stray leaves around them. The air had been chilly, but there was something electric in the wind. It tickled down Thor’s spine and settled as a warmth in his bones. The stars seemed to sparkle brighter, to move just slightly with the wind, as though they were lights hanging from invisible threads in the firmament. Thor felt as though something decoupled, in the Earth or in his chest, and reality broke loose from its moores to offer the world up to him like a canvas. He was an infinite being, he understood at once, and space folded and pulsed around him, beating to the great heartbeat that pumped life through the veins of the Yggdrasil. 

“There’s magic here,” he whispered.

Loki’s smile was brilliant, so pure with joy that Thor could not imagine the layers of lies and mischief that usually obscured it. And, for the first time since Loki was a babe kept swaddled and protected and hidden from Thor for his delicacy, Thor looked upon his brother and saw him as beautiful.

Magic stirred in the air, stilling every muscle in Thor’s body and filling him with the instant peace of revelation. This is what had been building between them this long year. It was hardly a diplomatic peace, as Loki had suggested. There could be no small gestures of appreciation and trust, no gradual thaw to allow each other access to the inner workings of the soul. It was a heart flung wide open. It was like hurling himself from the bifrost and into the great unknown. 

Loki’s eyes were an intense, unfathomable green, glinting like daggers in the moonlight and they were _knowing_. But how could Loki know what Thor himself had only just discovered? Loki did not move. He did not seem to breathe, looking like a great alabaster-skinned statue with achingly kind eyes. He would accept Thor’s choices, his gaze said, but he would not move a hair’s breadth to spur the choice forward. 

It did not seem to matter, for Thor did not perceive himself moving. It was the universe that moved around him, the space between them that folded, the magic on the wind that drew them together like the agitated, crashing elements, impelled to passion by an outside source.

This kiss was soft and tender, but lingered far longer than a kiss between brothers should. To Thor it felt as though time stopped, like the strange stillness of this place had permeated his bones. As he drew back, he let his hand remain on Loki’s cheek.

Loki smiled his soft smile again, taking Thor’s hand so they could return to their tent. It was the first night in a year that they had not slept under the stars.

***

Thor woke up to the feeling of warmth and another body against his. He smiled and opened his eyes to find that the warm body was not Loki, but Sleipnir, who appeared content to sprawl half on top of Thor with his legs dangling off to the sides. 

The next thing Thor noted, upon waking, was that Sif was screaming. He pulled on his tunic and rushed out of the tent, disturbing Sleipnir, who stumbled to his feet, following his uncle.

Thor’s heartbeat immediately calmed, his battle-senses leaving him the second he spotted the four figures sitting on the lakeshore.

“Loki Odinson!” Came Sif’s high pitched screech. “I will kill you! I will kill you in a manner so humiliating that the Valkyries will laugh at you and you will never be admitted to Valhalla for shear embarassment. I will learn all the magic I need so that I may curse you and every one of your future children! And the next time we spar you had better cover your . . .” Sif continued in that vein from where she was standing with two tents on an iceberg in the middle of the lake. At least Thor no longer had to worry about the unholy alliance that he had seen developing between her and Loki the previous night.

Thor ambled over to the four other figures who were sitting on the shore watching the show. He sat down next to Loki, wrapping his arm around his brother. “One day. You could not last one day without torturing Sif?”

Loki grinned. “My aim was not to torture Sif. It was a lesson to help Hogun learn the water-to-ice spell.” He gestured to where Hogun was sitting calmly in all his hunting gear. “When properly motivated, he figured out the spell to let him walk back over here.”

“It was quite brilliant,” Fandral added. He was soaking wet and wearing only his underclothes, spread out in the sun to let everything dry. 

“True,” Volstagg agreed, munching on an apple and not seeming particularly bothered that he too was soaked in what was probably freezing cold glacial water. “An innovative and effective teaching method.”

Sif hurled something at them from her perch on the iceberg. “Thor! Use your hammer and come get me!”

“Well, that wouldn’t be sporting,” Volstagg frowned. “Fandral and I had to swim over here.” 

“Are you going to let the mighty Thor rescue you like a damsel?” Fandral shouted, which just prompted some curses on his name and more inventive propositions for their next sparring session.

After it became clear that neither Thor nor Loki was going to assist her, “I hate you all!” Sif screamed, stripping off her tunic and diving into the lake.

The second she hit the water, Loki snapped his fingers and the tents and the rest of the gear materialized back on the shore next to them.

Fandral laughed, putting an arm around Loki. “Valhalla, I have missed you.”


	13. On the Futility of Maintaining a Soap Bubble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor and Loki work on their evolving relationship.

“Stay in the palace with me tonight,” Thor pleaded, grasping Loki’s hand in his.

Sif and the warriors three had already ridden off to their homes, leaving Thor, Loki, and Sleipnir alone at the edge of the wood. Their kiss from the first night had been repeated three times the subsequent night, before they had to return to the palace today. Thor could recite a ballad about every one. Each time, Thor had felt nearly giddy with the rush of it, but they had not tried for more. Thor didn’t need any more questions from his warrior friends and though he responded enthusiastically, Loki had yet to initiate.

“You know I can’t do that,” Loki replied. “I have to stay with Sleipnir.”

“Bring him as well,” Thor replied. 

“A horse in your rooms? I doubt mother would approve.”

“Mother will not know of it. You can make both of you invisible in order to get to my rooms.”

Loki sighed, exasperated. “Why are you so determined on this? We have been sleeping outdoors for a year now. What has changed?”

Honestly, Thor had no idea. Even if they wanted to lay together, being outdoors had never stopped either of them in the past. He shrugged. “I miss it. But I would rather be with you than sleep in my bed, so if you do not want to, we can wait until you have weaned Sleipnir.”

Loki frowned. “The absolute earliest he can be weaned is in a week, but I would prefer to give him milk until he no longer cares for it, which could be when he is a yearling.”

“But in a week you will not need to feed him constantly as you do now?”

“No. But it will be hard to explain my comings and goings from the stables and I do not,” he paused, looking lovingly at his son, “I would rather that he did not sleep alone.”

“There is the terrace garden attached to my rooms. I have never had it well-maintained, so the gardeners will not be upset if I let a horse stay there. He could spend the days in the pasture and afternoons and evenings there.”

“The terrace garden is far from my rooms.” As children, they had shared a room and as teens their rooms had been on the same hall as their parents. But after some fight between Odin and Loki that Thor could not remember, Loki had moved far away from the rest of the family, near the central library.

Thor frowned. “You would move into mine.”

“Why would I do that? I am a prince, Thor, not your body servant. You can’t just order me to move into your rooms because you want things your way.”

“But I thought . . .” Of course this could not be easy. If Loki was involved, it could never be easy. “We have not spent a night apart for a year now. I enjoy having you near.” Thor cupped Loki’s cheek, drawing him in, but Loki leaned away.

“Thinking was probably your first mistake,” Loki snapped, striding hurriedly away from Thor and stripping out of his tunic in preparation for his transformation back into a horse.

Thor couldn’t help it; when Loki snapped and acted moody it was Thor’s learned habit to anger. “Why do you resist me, Loki? It is a simple request. No harm will come to you from it.”

“You act like a spoiled child, Thor. You are too accustomed to getting your way. It doesn’t matter if harm will come to me. I do not desire it and no tantrum of yours will make me do what I do not want to.”

Thor sighed. As always, Loki twisted Thor’s words. Thor wished, not for the first time, that he was clever enough to speak in ways that Loki could not misinterpret. “Loki, I am not trying to control you. I just want to sleep beside you in a bed, like when we were children and you needed my comfort.”

“Yes, because that’s what this is about, isn’t it? Me needing you. You like having me completely dependent on you, like when we were children and I still thought you could protect me from monsters.”

“You do still need protection!” Thor protested. He knew that Loki had fought beside him in many a battle, defended him at Court, found a way to survive all kinds of adventure, but Loki was also the man whose soft lips had brushed against Thor’s so delicately and the boy who had snuck under the furs in Thor’s bed at night, pulling him close like a talisman against the evils of the world.

Loki balled his hands up into fists, seething. Before he could open his mouth, Thor realized his mistake and quickly retreated. “We _all_ need protection.”

“And you, the mighty Thor, the unstoppable warrior, universally loved, the heir to the throne?” Loki scoffed. “You have not thought for one moment that you are in need of protection.”

“You think me so arrogant that I do not recognize all the ways that you protect me without my asking? The diversions at Court, the way you cleaned up the mess I made with Seupu despite being a horse at the time, the way you guide me now?”

Loki seemed to deflate a little. He was still resentful, but the anger had cooled. “You have always been too arrogant to notice.”

Loki was right, of course. Before this year, Thor had always seen himself as an excellent leader. When he did appear at court, currying favor had been effortless and Thor had never stopped to question why. But there had been many hard lessons this year, chief among them was the realization that he could fail. And the corollary was that if he wanted to succeed, Thor would need to ask for help. He had not asked for help in the past, but Thor had always received it and he was grateful for that show of love.

“Perhaps I have been, but are _you_ so arrogant that you would have me remain that way so that you might have reason to continue to resent me? I need you to protect me and I always have. Let me do the same for you.”

Loki looked down at his hands, but the tense line of his mouth softened just slightly. Thor was actually winning an argument against his silver-tongued brother! He was wearing Loki down and persuading him! He only just managed to contain the smile that would give the whole thing away.

“I am not trying to control you,” Thor pushed forward. “If anything, you control me. But instead of manipulating me into doing what you want, do not be too prideful to _ask_ for it. And do not ask me as an order or to show your power. Ask me as a favor, as though I have the free will to deny you. And instead of hiding your fears and your desires with anger, just tell me what it is you feel and together we can decide a way forward that satisfies us both. We are unstoppable together, Loki. We must not squander that by fighting.”

After a long moment of contemplation, Loki once again met Thor’s eyes. His eyes were shining in that way only Loki seemed to achieve - as though they were so overfull with tears that the eyeball itself were made of them and yet somehow, by magic, they did not spill. “My true feelings?”

Thor nodded, his heart hammering in his chest as though this were some great battle.

Loki looked almost in a trance, as though he needed to cast a spell to invoke his own emotions. “Confusion, bewilderment, love, bitterness, fear, skepticism, desire, loathing, paranoia, tenderness, regret.”

Of course Loki would give Thor everything and nothing at once. “Care to explain?”

At first it looked as though Loki would refuse and continue to hold himself behind a shield, but he sat down on a log stiffly and recited to the air an arm’s length away from Thor’s hip, “Confusion about what it is you hope to gain from me. Bewilderment that you have for some reason decided to seek a carnal relationship. Love for you as my brother. Bitterness that I have put myself in a situation where I must rely on you. Skepticism that this folly you currently seek must end in disaster. Loathing because my life is a prison and you are as much my jailer as you are the balm that soothes my confinement. Paranoia that you have some other motive. Tenderness towards you, for how much you have changed this year. Regret that soon all this life we have made for ourselves will come to an end and I will have to face the consequences. Did I forget anything?”

As a strategy, overwhelming Thor’s mind with unprocessable emotional revelation seemed to be working. But there was something that Loki forgot to mention - most likely deliberately. It was the most important thing of all. Thor kneeled in the fallen leaves and took Loki’s hands in his. “You forgot fear, brother. What is it that you are afraid of?”

“While you rely on instinct, I have always relied on reason and intellect. I make plans and, I admit, I scheme. I try to take into account your volatility and you are right, sometimes I manipulate it, but I could not have planned for this folly that you now seek, Thor. I cannot reason my way forward. The entire idea of it is so unfathomable and so wide-reaching that I cannot imagine how we will live our lives from this moment forward. I am overwhelmed by all the reasons we should not.”

“Sif said that such relations between brothers are not prohibited.”

Loki rolled his eyes. “And Sif, the maiden who trampled ages of tradition to become a warrior, is the grand arbiter of propriety? Just because it is not prohibited, does not mean we _should_. We are not two pig farmers or warriors stuck in battle a long way from home. We are the princes of Asgard and everything we do is political. And even excepting the citizenry, what of our parents? They hope to see you wedded to a future queen and for me, a political marriage, I am sure. If we are to become lovers, Thor, then will we still be brothers? And when it is over and we are to be married, will we still be brothers or will we be those empty shells who remain when love is lost? I fear that you have set us on a path that will destroy us.”

Thor felt the storm of anger brewing in him once again. If Loki thought this was such a terrible idea, why had he kissed Thor in return? Why had he practically enchanted Thor with his talk of passion and that magical lakeside? And why would Loki, who had always been so quick to remind Thor of his stupidity, fail to be the voice of reason now, when there was so much to lose? 

Thor did not want to be Loki’s lover if it meant crippling him with fear. I was clear that he needed Loki now more than ever and if the price of keeping him was to let go of the thing he most wanted, Thor would do it. “If you do not want this, Loki, then we will end it and not think of it again.”

How Loki managed to look at once resigned and mischievous, Thor did not know. “But, Thor, you did not notice that I forgot to explain one more thing. Desire.”

A tentative smile crept onto Thor’s lips. “So that means . . . you desire me?”

“Valhalla help me, but I do.”

Thor surged forward, capturing Loki’s lips in a fierce kiss. This was the first time that their kiss was not tender, but somehow this kiss was more vulnerable for it. No, not vulnerable . . . raw. Loki kissed like a man who was in no need of protection, who had nothing whatsoever to fear. They kissed like they fought: intense, well-matched, a little bit rude, and full of passion.

Before he knew it, Thor had inserted himself between Loki’s knees and was pulling Loki to him so that their manhoods brushed against each other. The hot pressure of Loki’s hardness against his only drove Thor deep into that frantic place of pure instinct that he only reached in lust and battle. He pushed himself against Loki with such force that they both toppled off the log and into a pile of leaves behind it. Thor laughed, before diving back in for another of Loki’s intense kisses. He did not think he would ever tire of them.

“Wait!” Loki commanded, pushing Thor off him and sitting up. His cheeks were flushed like on a hot day and he barely caught his breath, his long black hair full of leaves and his eyes grinning with devious delight. He looked so deliciously debauched that Thor could barely contain his desire to push him back on the ground and ravish him.

But then Thor followed Loki’s gaze to where Sleipnir was now standing, staring that them as though he had never seen them before. Thor momentarily debated - it was wrong to copulate in front of children, but not wrong to copulate in front of horses (Thor had done so more times than he could count). But then Thor looked into Sleipnir’s too intelligent eyes and sighed. “I remember long ago that father claimed we owed him a hundred years of interruptions. I think I know what he meant now,” Thor complained.

Loki pushed himself off the forest floor, daintily brushing the leaves from his pants and picking them out of his hair. “I think maybe I will join you in the palace tonight after all. Sleipnir will be able to entertain himself in the terrace garden for a little while.”

***

They decided that Loki should return to his horse form and both he and Sleipnir would accompany Thor up the narrow stone steps that lead to his private terrace garden. Thor and Loki had often used those steps as young men in order to come and go from the palace without their parent’s scrutiny. They knew that Heimdall was still watching, so it wasn’t true stealth, but it made them feel thrilled with their mischievous deception nonetheless.

Sleipnir seemed contented to play in the garden, especially entranced by the brightly colored fish that swam in the small pond. Thor pulled Loki down into his lap on a stone bench, kissing him deeply. 

“When he goes to sleep, Thor,” Loki said with a husky whisper. 

“I do not know how you manage such restraint,” Thor complained, knowing that his caresses and soft kisses were only making things worse. He could not seem to help himself.

“Yes, I suppose mental discipline was never a skill of yours,” Loki teased.

They let Sleipnir follow them into Thor’s rooms. Unlike many rooms in the palace, most of the floor was covered in soft fur rugs from Thor’s various hunts. It was so different than Loki’s rooms, which were stark and modern. Even his library appeared to be just a room with obsidian walls and a single blackwood desk. The many books were tucked away into a pocket of space at the back of the room that Loki opened by magic. Thor had never been inside, noting only that if Loki went to retrieve a book it looked like he stepped into darkness itself. Everything about Loki’s chambers screamed that he relied on magic and not the everyday conveniences utilized by most Aesir. Even the lights were glowing orbs that hovered in the air and only lit in Loki’s presence.

Thor’s rooms were lit with lamps and cluttered by comparison, filled with rich wooden shelves that housed a mix of weaponry, books, and other treasures discovered in quests. Unlike his parents, or Loki, Thor kept most of the gifts given to him by foreign dignitaries and grateful subjects. A diverse array of art and tapestries hung on his walls alongside decorative shields, pottery, weavings, and whatever else people saw fit to give him. What he couldn’t fit on his walls or on the single high shelf that ran close to the ceiling around the entirety of his rooms, he kept in an enchanted space like Loki’s library. Sif jokingly referred to it as his trophy room. Thor didn’t really care about all of the stuff or its absence, but it seemed rude to just get rid of it.

When previously Thor had felt comfortable amid the chaos, he now felt uneasy. Despite being infinitely more complex than a single room could be, nature felt simple in so many ways. No wonder Loki kept his rooms so free of clutter. 

“It is not how I remember it,” Thor complained.

“I assure you, it is just as much a disaster as you left it. I pity the poor servants that come in here to clean.”

Thor shrugged. “They have cleaners that vanish the dust.”

“Ah, but in order to vanish the dust, the cleaning device must be able to see it. Imagine how many objects they must move to clean behind them.”

Thor felt suddenly guilty. “I did not know that.” He resolved, “if you come to stay here, I will move all of these objects to my ‘trophy room’ and we can decorate it more like yours.”

Loki sighed. “You still want that? This is new, Thor. Let us have a try before you make any grand declarations of affection.”

“I would declare right now that I . . .”

Loki pressed a finger to Thor’s lips. “Shhh. Don’t ruin the moment.”

Loki pushed Thor back onto the bed, straddling him and grabbing Thor’s hardness in a way that was more possessive than tender. Thor looked around for Sleipnir, but the horse had clearly lost interest with being inside and had returned to the garden. Thor noted that Loki must have magicked the door closed behind him.

Loki grinned, pushing Thor’s tunic off his shoulders and kissing down his abdomen. Thor sighed, running his fingers through Loki’s hair as he yanked open Thor’s trousers. Loki looked up through his long black lashes. In this moment, he seemed to be a creature of pure mischief, so smug with the way he teased Thor with his breath and his light touches - so close and yet denying Thor what he really wanted. Thor groaned, dropping his head back onto the pillow and fisting his fingers in the furs.

Thor did not know how long he allowed Loki to tease him, but enough was enough. He growled, hooking a leg over Loki’s and flipping them over, off the bed and onto the soft bearskin rug beside it. Loki huffed at the rough treatment, but neither of them was fragile. 

Thor looked down into familiar green eyes, wondering how he could have possibly missed how beautiful Loki was for more than a thousand years. Loki did not have the muscle-bound physique of Thor’s typical conquest or the blond hair that was practically the standard of beauty in Asgard. But the way his pale skin contrasted with his dark hair and intense green eyes was exotic somehow. Then there were the high cheekbones and the delicate perfection of his musculature - not large, but well defined. Thor didn’t think he’d ever desired anyone more. 

Thor ripped Loki’s dirty tunic away and pulled his pants down with one swift motion, following it with a searing kiss. They rutted up against each other like frantic beasts. Thor had done this many times with both men and women, but somehow the fact that it was Loki, with a year of magic and a millenium of history between them, lit a fire in Thor’s blood that he had not felt outside the heat of battle. 

Of course that was when their mother walked in.

“Thor?” she called. “Heimdall tells me that you have finally returned to your chambers.”

Thor hastily pulled his tunic closed and tightened the fastening on his pants before standing up. He was incredibly relieved that they had fallen onto the opposite side of the bed from the door.

“Mother.”

Frigga frowned. “What are you doing down there?”

Thor shrugged, trying to look innocent. His mother surely did not want to know what he had been doing. “I am an adult, mother. You should not still be able to enter my chambers as you please.”

“Oh, Thor,” Frigga laughed, “to me, you will always be my little boy.”

Loki rolled his eyes from where he had moved to sit in an intricately carved chair by the wall. He had no doubt made himself invisible to Frigga. 

“What brings you here, mother?” Thor asked. “I am tired from my journey with my friends and wish to rest.”

“It is the War Council. Tyr sends his summons for an emergency session.”

Thor nodded. “I will join them as soon as I have changed my clothes.”

Frigga smiled then, stepping forward to embrace her son. “I am happy you have returned to make the palace your home once again, Thor. It is difficult on a mother when both her sons leave her nest.”

“Do not fret, mother. I have returned and I hope Loki will do so as well.”

Loki scowled, but did not say anything. He did look fondly at their mother, however. Thor figured that Loki must have missed her as much as she missed him. Before he became mired in sympathy, Thor had to remind himself that Loki’s current exile was of his own choosing. He could freely return to court if only he admitted Sleipnir’s origins.

Frigga pulled back. “Tell me truly, my son. Do you know of Loki’s whereabouts? I do not need to see him if he does not wish it. I only want him to know that he has my love.”

Thor stared at Loki over Frigga’s shoulder. “I assure you mother, he already knows.”

But Frigga had never been one to be swayed by sentimentality. She smiled at Thor, but pressed on. “And I need to know that he is safe,” she added.

Thor clasped her hands, knowing that Loki would be angry with him later, but he couldn’t stand to let his mother worry. “I promise, mother. Loki is safe. He will return to us soon.”

Frigga’s smile was brilliant. She embraced Thor again, squeezing tight this time. When they were children, Frigga’s hugs had felt unshakable and all-encompassing. Her body surrounding Thor was a balm for any ill. But now, his mother’s love could not protect him from the world - not from Loki’s angry glare, or the trouble brewing in Jotunheim, or the dangerous passion she had interrupted.

Frigga planted a kiss on the top of Thor’s head, before clasping his hand. “Come, my son, we must find Tyr.”

***

Thor returned to his rooms angry. He slammed the door open hard enough to send a elven vase smashing to the ground. Thor ignored the pieces of broken ceramic and searched the room for Loki. The Jotun had refused the investigators’ demands to see King Laufey and now they were putting Thor in a position to look weak if he did not take some form of retribution. But the Jotun lived in barren world full of ice and dying things - how could Thor possibly punish them further without inciting a war? None of his council held the answer. The only good spot in all this was that now that she knew, it was Sif who suggested they leave the decision until morning, smirking knowingly at Thor the entire time. They both hoped that Loki had the answer because neither of them did.

But Loki was not in the chambers. Had he left? Thor panicked, rushing out onto the terrace garden. Sleipnir was sleeping beneath a tree, seeming to be unconcerned with Loki’s absence, so the prince could not have wandered far. Thor was about to head for the stone steps when he realized that there was only one place Loki _could_ be (assuming he was not making himself invisible in order to taunt Thor). 

Thor walked into his bathing room to find Loki kneeling in front of three candles. Thor admired the sleek lines of his naked back, the curve of his shoulder bones, the way his waist tapered, the luminous quality of his pale skin in the candlelight.

The washroom was the opposite of the rest of Thor’s dwelling. There was not a single extraneous item or a single item out of place. The walls were painted deep red, the color of dried blood. The floor was a dark, living stone cultivated on Alfheim which breathed in air and emitted heat, giving the stone beneath Thor’s feet a perpetual warmth. The bath itself was a sunken pool surrounded by a stone bench. Quite a few people could probably fit in the bath, but there was not enough room to swim. Hot water sluiced gently down one entire wall of the room and out over a ledge to create a small waterfall before tumbling into the main bath.

Loki did not turn at Thor’s entrance, but Thor had never once snuck up on him, so he knew his brother was aware of his presence. There was an enforced stillness to the room, a silence that spoke of ritual. Thor’s rant about the boldness of the Jotuns died on his lips. He pulled off his ceremonial armor with haste and left it outside the bathing room door before closing it. 

Thor walked around Loki and kneeled facing him. Thor could tell by the selection of candles that this was a familiar ritual from their youth - a blessing for the brotherly bond to be performed each year on the day of the new year. Loki had since expressed his skepticism at such ‘superstitious nonsense,’ but if Loki wanted to bless their bond, then Thor would not argue, even if it was not the new year. When they were children, they would squirm at the silence required for this particular ritual, but now stillness came easily.

They focused their eyes on each other. Loki’s were soft with remembrance, his lips half smirking as usual. Loki waved his hand, setting a small reed on fire. Thor used the new magic Loki had taught him to light the other, almost jumping at the overzealous bonfire he created at the tip of the thing. Loki grinned at Thor’s clumsy magic but did not speak. He lit the candle on the right and Thor the one on the left. They then lit the center candle together. It was a special candle whose flame burned purple, spreading the scent of fresh pine throughout the bathing room. 

They stood in unison, moving to the heated smokestone in the corner. A pitcher of water already waited there along with a small silver blade. It was flat and wide and intricate, looking more like a pennant or a letter holder with one end a triangle and the other as round as half a circle. Loki used it to poke a small hole in his thumb, dropping the blood into the golden pitcher. Thor did the same. The pinpricks healed almost instantly, but something in the blade always made Thor’s veins feel on fire, like ants crawling in his blood. Together they grasped the pitcher and doused the water over the smokestone. Steam billowed up from it, casting the room in a warm mist.

Next, they walked to separate sides of the bath and slid in. The bathwater was warm, not scalding hot as Thor preferred it. But Loki had never liked heat and Thor would not make him uncomfortable. Loki offered a small vial of sandalwood scented soap to Thor, who poured a small drop into his palms and worked it into a lather. He washed Loki’s hair and shoulders as required by the ritual, but this time instead of doing a haphazard, perfunctory job out of awkwardness, he messaged Loki’s scalp and shoulders, pulling Loki back against him until Loki was sitting on one of Thor’s thighs. 

When Thor finished his ministrations, Loki turned around, straddling Thor on the bench and washing his hair in turn, his eyes never leaving Thor’s face. There was something undefinable in his expression, an amused contentment combined with something much darker, fatalistic.

When Loki finished, they stood together under the waterfall, letting it rinse the soap from their hair. They both ducked down under the surface of the water and were supposed to arise new men for a new year with all the strains of their brotherly bond repaired. Thor had always felt refreshed after the ritual, but this year, he felt powerful and peaceful at once, like he need only wish and his wants would materialize.

He pulled Loki to him under the artificial waterfall, devouring his mouth in a decidedly not-brotherly kiss. Loki returned the kiss, his fingers tangling in Thor’s hair. Thor pushed Loki back under the waterfall to the wall beneath the ledge and Loki wrapped his legs around Thor’s waist so that they rubbed against each other. Thor was used to deep grunts of passion, but Loki’s breath came in small panted moans, sometimes smothered by Thor’s lips on his.

Loki summoned a vial of oil and Thor used it to prepare him to an accompaniment of gasps and groans. Loki’s hands would no doubt leave bruises on Thor’s shoulders where he pulled him in closer, but Thor didn’t care. He had never wanted anything as much as he wanted to take Loki, to make him Thor’s in every way. Perhaps Loki was right and Thor did want control. But he didn’t want it for his own power or aggrandizement. He wanted it because without control, he could not keep Loki with him, writhing and moaning Thor’s name as he did now.

When the time came, and Thor was about to sink into Loki’s welcoming heat, Loki’s previously closed eyes opened and he whispered to Thor, “Please be careful.”

“Of course, I will always be careful with you,” Thor replied earnestly, laying delicate kisses on Loki’s collarbone to prove it. 

“Oh, I prefer if you are not always careful with me. Only now is the first time since . . .” Loki could not say since he was violated by a horse. “It is the first time in a long time.”

Thor kissed him tenderly. “You need not worry, brother. I will take good care of you.”

Loki winced. “Grant me a favor, Thor: do not call me brother when we are like this.”

“Lover, then? Dearest? Heartsong?”

Loki rolled his eyes. “Call me Loki and I will call you . . .” his voice trailed off into a moan as Thor entered him.

“Yes, I should like if you call me that all the time,” Thor panted, trying to restrain himself from madly thrusting. Once Thor bottomed out, they both took a moment to catch their breaths. Thor did not need to ask, just look into Loki’s eyes to know that he could move now. Under the ledge, with the water sluicing down behind them, just skimming Thor’s back when he drew out of Loki before plunging back in again, it felt like their own private world, separated by a wall of water from the troubles of the kingdom and the trials of Thor’s rule.

The world narrowed until it was just Loki’s moans, the sound of water, the feeling of floating, and Thor chasing his climax like the greatest of all quests. Loki reached completion first, digging his fingers into Thor’s back and clenching around Thor with a strangled gasp. It did not take Thor much longer, only a few more hard thrusts and he was spilling himself inside Loki with a grunt. When pulled back, Loki’s skin was dripping with sweat and dewdrops of mist from the water and the smokestone.

He pressed one last kiss to Loki’s lips before sliding out of him and pulling him to sit between Thor’s legs on one of the benches while they both caught their breaths. 

After a long moment, Loki pulled away and ducked under the water to wash off the sweat of their exertions and smooth back his hair.

Thor did the same before he pulled Loki back into his lap, wrapping him in a tight embrace and nuzzling his neck. “Why the Ritual of the Renewal of Brotherhood?”

Loki shrugged. “We missed it this past New Year.”

“We have missed it the past hundreds of years due to your skepticism. Have you had a change of heart?”

Loki shrugged. “No, just a sense of irony.”

“Say what you will, Loki, but I will continue to believe that our relationship has fallen into disrepair over the years we have neglected the ritual and now we are committed to repair the damage we have wrought in our neglect.”

“Superstition _and_ sentiment, but I should expect no less from you, Thor.”

“Though I suppose I can appreciate the irony as well,” Thor added. “That last part of the ritual was less than brotherly.”

Loki laughed. “Indeed it was.” 

As their bodies and the water around them cooled, the rest of the world returned. “Loki, King Laufey and his sons have left the palace. We know not where they have disappeared to and the frost giants will not tell us. We do not know what to do. You must come with me tomorrow to the Council and advise us. We will say you are weak from your travels so you might have excuse to return frequently to feed Sleipnir.”

Loki pulled out of Thor’s arms. For a second Thor worried that this would turn into another fight about Thor trying to control him, but Loki only looked defeated, not angry. “I can’t, Thor.”

“I promise that no one will discover Sleipnir’s origins.”

“It’s not that,” Loki replied. “Everything is so good, Thor. I have Sleipnir and you and our friends are treating me better than they ever have.” Thor grinned just at the fact that Loki called them ‘our’ friends. “This last year has stripped me of my defenses, Thor. I’m not ready to face our mother’s concern and disapproval or the scorn and rumor of the Court. You told me to ask for what I need and you would grant it. Grant me just a little more of this peace.”

Loki sounded sincere, but then he often did when he was lying. In the end, Thor supposed it didn’t matter why Loki did not want to return. It only mattered that he did not. Thor kissed him. “I will, so long as you continue to advise me. But Loki, you must know that all things eventually come to an end. What was it that father always said about peace?”

“It is as impossible to maintain as the integrity of a soap bubble,” Loki supplied. “I will return when it is necessary, Thor, but no sooner.”


	14. Preemptive Strikes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor and Sif fight at the Warrior's Council and Thor investigates his own fertility.

Thor felt comfortable, safe, and warm. He felt utterly content. And then something warm and moist touched his foot. Thor shot out of bed, dislodging Loki, who was draped over him, with his head tucked into Thor’s neck. 

Wide green eyes met Thor’s at the end of the bed and Sleipnir huffed and nudged Thor’s foot again. The day had barely begun and Sleipnir’s grey coat looked almost blue in the pre-dawn light.

“Thor,” Loki groaned. “Stop fidgeting and go back to sleep. I was comfortable.”

“Sorry, Loki, but I think your son wants to break his fast.”

Loki pushed himself up with a grumble and transformed into a horse in the middle of Thor’s rooms. After Sleipnir had finished suckling, Loki returned to his normal form and collapsed back into the bed and on top of Thor.

Thor wished he could return to sleep, but now that Sleipnir had awakened him, his mind would not quiet. Last night, they had arisen from a long soak the bath only to make love again on Thor’s bed before falling almost immediately to sleep. It had left no time for discussion of the situation in Jotunheim.

But despite the looming meeting of the Warrior’s Council, Thor had another thought on his mind. He had enjoyed lying with Loki to an almost absurd degree, but there was something missing. If it were solely about chasing their mutual pleasure, then Thor would have no problem. He had enjoyed the same acts with many a lover. He’d even enjoyed them with Seupu, despite his deceptions. But what Loki meant to him was far beyond mere pleasure. And Thor wanted to do something that made it special. It felt different than all that had come before, but Thor had no way of articulating that difference. He doubted that Loki would accept a ballad in his honor, or any gifts.

He thought about what Loki had said before: they would have to trade intimacies in order to come closer. Thor’s heart felt open and vulnerable, like it was stuffed full to bursting out of love. But as Loki still kept his secrets, no doubt thousands of them, Thor still kept his body - he kept one thing from all his lovers and what greater act of intimacy could there be than to give it to the one person he loved above all others?

Thor did not know what made him so nervous about being taken. He never doubted for a second that his partners found it pleasurable and he was sure that he would find it pleasurable as well. He knew that part of his fear was that he saw it as weakness. To take another powerful individual in such a way meant that they submitted to have their body breached, potentially injured. Thor would never use it as a tool of actual dominance, though there were many stories of such a thing used as torture, humiliation, a sign of victory, or spoils of war. He would not dream of sullying himself by changing an act that should be about pleasure into one of war and he did not think less of his partners for allowing him to penetrate them.

But it was not something he did. That animalistic part of him, the part that no doubt impelled many a king and warrior to use such an act of war on the body, resisted the idea that he, Thor Odinson, who never allowed anyone to dominate him in battle or in life, would allow such an act of submission.

Could he allow such a thing from Loki? Thor wasn’t sure, but for the first time he could remember, he considered it. In fact, he more than considered it. He was curious. He _wanted_ it. But wanting something and being able to do it were two separate things. Then again, Thor had long mastered his body, had trained himself to push beyond the limits of strength and endurance when needed. He could go months without resting or eating or drinking, lost in battle. He could fight through gaping wounds and broken bones. Thor’s body was his to command as much as the elemental world belonged to Loki. He could breathe through the discomfort of the act and he could force his body to still and let the wound be inflicted. He would win this battle for Loki and for their relationship, because his brother deserved to have everything Thor could give him.

He resolved to visit the healing rooms after the council meeting and discover his fertility status once and for all. At least that way he could ask Loki to reserve some of the anti-conception tea for him if needed.

“Stop thinking,” Loki groaned from beside him.

Normally Thor would have just hit his brother with a pillow, but instead he rolled over, situating himself in between Loki’s spread legs. “I will stop thinking when you make it so.”

Loki’s eyes squinted open and he looked at Thor skeptically. Thor rolled his hips a little, feeling Loki harden in response. He grinned.

“Oh, wipe that smug look off your face. If you’re not careful it might get stuck that way.”

Loki, as it turned out, would not let Thor take him with Sleipnir in the room, but he seemed perfectly content to duck under the covers and make Thor cease all coherent thought if Sleipnir was awake but chasing butterflies on the terrace. Thor gladly returned the favor before settling with Loki against him. 

“You must help me with the Jotun situation.”

Loki grumbled, burrowing his face into Thor’s chest. 

“Come on, we are princes, we cannot escape these matters entirely.”

“I could. If I had stayed in the wilds with Sleipnir, I could be free of all this.”

“You would prefer the existence of a horse to being a prince?” What Thor really wanted to know was if Loki preferred to wander than to stay here with him. 

“These are your duties, Thor. I’m not sure father would approve of me helping you.”

“Since when have you cared for father’s approval?”

Loki looked bewildered. “Sometimes I wonder if you know me at all, Thor. Since _always_.”

Thor frowned. Then why was Loki always making mischief? Why did he not focus more on his fighting skills and less on magic, as Odin desired?

Clearly Thor’s thoughts were plain on his stupid revealing face because Loki poked him hard in the side. “I seek father’s approval for being who I am, not some shadow of what you already are, Thor.”

Thor didn’t entirely understand the difference, but Loki was missing the point as usual. “I am sure that father would disapprove of us both if you let me accidentally start a war with Jotunheim in his absence.”

Loki nodded. “Father has always said that a great king does not seek war, but he prepares for it. Our last war with the Jotun was devastating. More so for Jotunheim than for Asgard, but I’ve seen the intelligence reports from Jotunheim and Sif related to me the current status of our own warriors. If it comes to war, we will win. But without the Casket, the Jotun have very little to lose. They will fight until we are crippled and they are dead.”

“If they are plotting an incursion into Asgard, then we will have to fight until it is so,” Thor argued.

“There are ways other than war to stop a plot, Thor. A plot is just a harmless thought before it is executed. There are greater forces in the universe, brother, beyond the Nine Realms. There are enemies much deadlier than the Jotun and we cannot afford to lose our strength on a Jotun rebellion if it means we will not have the strength to defend ourselves.”

“What do you mean?” Thor asked. Thor was of course aware that there was entire universe outside the Nine Realms and that in all probability parts of it were inhabited. But he had paid careful attention to all his lessons in War History and there had never been an attack from outside. “How do you know of this, Loki?”

“I have travelled beyond the arms of Yggdrasil, brother. I have seen truths that confuse and terrify.” Loki lowered his head, speaking now to Thor’s chest in his shame. “I may even have drawn the curiosity of horrible things.”

Thor sat up, forcing Loki off him. They faced each other: Thor with the furs still draped around him and Loki crouched on their pillows like a bird ready to take flight. “Why didn’t you tell me of such adventures, Loki? I would have . . .”

“You could not have journeyed with me, Thor. They were exercises in dark magic that stretched my power, to fling my consciousness to the far realms of space. It was projection. I still do not know how to fully transport myself there.”

“If I could not go with you, you could have told me of the threat.”

“You were not in a position of power before. I suffered enough, knowing what was out there. I did not need to ruin your innocence as well. I made our father aware of the situation. Surely, you do not think that our slow increases in training efforts and recruitment of sorcerers was due to the Jotun, a race we have had peace with our entire lives.”

Thor stood, changing into his ceremonial armor angrily. “You hold your secrets so dearly, Loki. Did you not think I needed to be aware of such things when I took over father’s duties on the War Council?”

“Tyr knows. He would have told you if I did not.”

“Why would you tell Tyr and not your own brother?”

Loki sighs. “I love you, Thor, but love does not override practicality. Trust me, you do not wish to be burdened with all that I know. If I know things you do not, it is not because they are secrets but because you would not be helped by knowing them.”

“Move the words about all you like, Loki, but the naked truth is that you believe you deserve to keep things from me.”

“And if I do?”

Thor knew enough of strategy to recognize a long siege when he saw one and the siege on the fortress of Loki’s secrets must wait for a more favorable season. “Thank you, Loki. I now understand the consequences of a war with Jotunheim,” Thor forced out. Thor always had difficulties stepping away from arguments, but with the War Council meeting only moments away, he did not have time. “Now what do you suggest I do?”

Loki shrugged. “Anything other than a military response. King Laufey has disappeared because he does not wish to explain what he is currently doing. But the Jotuns have always been a secretive people, especially concerning the inner workings of their culture and their biology. We do not even know what they eat. We must rely on the fact that it makes no sense for Laufey to start a war now when he is even more desperately outmatched than last time. No, the best option is to wait for the spymaster to return to illuminate Laufey’s purpose. But some small act to show who is in control is probably warranted. You can send more men, or take a few of the liars in for questioning at your sentry post. Whatever you do, Laufey’s deputies will not start a war in his absence, so it does not entirely matter. Send a second spy after whoever will undoubtedly go to tell Laufey of your actions.”

“And what small act do you suggest.”

“Let the Council decide. We should let them think they have some power in all this.”

“And . . .”

Before Thor could finish, the bell on his door rang. He opened it to find Sif waiting on the other side. She did not wait for an invitation to enter.

“Thor.” She kissed Thor on the cheek. “Loki.” She nodded to where Loki was still laying on the bed, obviously naked and not particularly ashamed. Thor had expected that Loki would make himself invisible, but instead he stood and walked to the dresser, which Thor noted now contained some of Loki’s clothes. Loki pulled on a pair of supple leather pants and a tunic before greeting Sif with a kiss.

“Are you prepared for today’s Council, Sif?” Loki asked.

“As prepared as I can be,” Sif replied, still looking a little alarmed by the state of undress she had found Loki in. He eyes darted back and forth between the brothers suspiciously. 

“Yes, it is a difficult decision - what is happening on Jotunheim.”

“Do you have an opinion on the matter?”

Loki smirked. “I have many. But, I should not waste your time. Please escort my dear brother to the council chambers for me. I must make a small trip to the South Wall.” Thor briefly wondered if Sif knew about Loki’s special anti-conception potion and what a trip to the South Wall ment. He must have mentioned it to her over the years, but he did not know how likely it was that she remembered.

Thor blushed, which only made Loki grin. Whether or not Sif knew of the potion soon became immaterial because just so there was no doubt about the changed nature of their relationship, Loki shimmied up to Thor and pressed a lingering kiss to his lips.

Sif just rolled her eyes and grabbed Thor by the elbow, practically dragging him out the door.

The second the door shut behind them, Sif hissed. “What the hell was that?”

Thor didn’t see much point in denying it. “I took your advice of long ago. Loki and I are now lovers.”

“That much is obvious. What I mean is: why does your brother know about the matters of the Council?”

“They are not confidential, Sif.”

“According to the Council’s charter they are.”

Thor frowed. He did not know there was a charter, let alone manage to read it. “Loki is a prince as much as I am. He has a right to know.”

“I doubt your father would see it that way.”

“That, we will find out when he wakes.”

Sif took Thor’s statement for the dismissal it was and they made their way to the Council Chambers in silence.

After the formal introductions, Tyr began the meeting with new information from Jotunheim. “My fellow councilmen, I’m afraid that I come bringing sad tidings. Our sentries using magically calibrated spyglasses have detected a great magical glow emanating from the Dawn-side of Jotunheim. We must assume that King Laufey is there and that he is using massive amounts of magic for some unknown purpose.”

The councilmen immediately broke out into outraged shouts, some banging on the table, and arguing amongst themselves. Thor expected no less from a group of seasoned warriors, but was there really anything to argue about? Performing such magic under the watch of Asgard and refusing to explain it - surely this was an act of war. And its timing was not a coincidence. Laufey had no doubt heard that Odin slept and Thor was now on the throne. It was a test of Thor’s resolve and it would be met with the show of force it deserved. “Laufey is preparing for war.” Thor’s voice boomed, silencing the other council members. “And we will give it to him. Call your designated houses to amass their warriors and we will march on Jotunheim!”

“Thor!” Sif shouted sharply. “Such actions are foolish. We do not know what it is Laufey is doing. We cannot go to war without that knowledge.”

“You dare call me a fool, Lady Sif?” Thor grunted, turning in anger on the one council member that was supposed to be his ally. Sif, as usual, refused to be intimidated when Thor stepped menacingly into her space. 

“I’m not calling you a fool, Thor.” Sif rolled her eyes irreverently. “I wouldn’t dare. But the idea that we would go unprepared into war against a people with whom we have had peace since you and I were babes is foolish.”

“Laufey has flouted our authority and that of our king enough,” Ve shouted. “It does not matter if he is preparing for war or not. His behavior violates our treaty and he must be shown his place!”

Several of the warriors, the ones who had fought with Ve in the last Jotun war, all clapped their hands in agreement.

“He thinks Asgard weak without the presence of Odin. But we are strong with a will and a prowess in battle that even Odin underestimates,” Ve continued. “I will summon my warriors and we will fight hard to prove that the Jotun shall not take advantage of our prince.”

“I have no doubt that you will,” Thor replied. In the back of his mind he remembered what Loki had told him about the need to maintain their forces, about the Jotun’s desperation and the threat in the void, but the situation had changed. Laufey was using powerful magic and if he used this unknown power against Asgard, then there would be no army left to fight the foreign power that Loki feared. 

“I agree with Lady Sif,” Tyr replied. “I do not think we have enough knowledge to go to war. In the very least, this magic could be a trap or it could have nothing to do with war and simply be a Jotun habit of some sort. For all we know the phenomena is natural. The Jotun do have a natural connection to their land that is poorly understood. We must find out more before we act.”

Tyr had a good point about the potential for a trap. Thor did not relish the idea of arriving on Jotunheim blind. “You are right. We must wait for more information before we attack. But King Laufey is courting war. We will prepare for a preemptive strike while we await the word of our spymaster. Can Heimdall provide any information?”

Sif shook her head. “He has not been able to see Laufey since he disappeared from the palace days ago. Perhaps the magical field the sentries observed is obscuring his view. He says that otherwises things are unusually quiet on Jotunheim.”

“All the more reason to punish Laufey. One of the terms of the treaty was that he would hide himself from Heimdall’s gaze.”

“We cannot go to war over one treaty term!” Tyr argued. “I suggest that you visit the palace yourself, Prince Thor. Demand Laufey’s presence and if he will not appear, demand to speak to a giant with the authority to negotiate.”

“If what he prepares on the Dawn-side is a weapon of war that he only needs more time to finish, we will be allowing him a delay that he will use against us,” Ve argued. “You were not there, younglings,” he said to Thor and Sif. “Laufey is ruthless. He was ruthless when he tried to conquer Midgard, ruthless when he took the All-Father’s eye, and ruthless to his own people in their shameful surrender. He put the Hill Giants into a frozen sleep when they lost the war and I would wager my tankard in Valhalla that he wakes them now as an army.”

“I will not go to war on your word,” Tyr replied. “It does not matter how much you wager. War is risk enough; we cannot gamble on that which we do not know. We must wait. I do not dispute you - if it is proven that King Laufey is preparing for an invasion of Asgard, then we must attack. But if all he is doing is raise his army, then we should allow him to.”

Tyr’s statement was met with shocked gasps.

“Without the Casket of Ancient Winters or the Bifrost, he has no way off that frozen rock. An army just gives him more mouths to feed. We cannot allow him to trick us into bringing the war to Jotunheim, where he can kill our warriors without finding a means to travel to other worlds.”

“You would prefer that he bring the fight to Asgard?” Thor demanded.

“I would see him prove that he is really a threat before we play into his trap.”

Thor looked a Ve and the other holdouts, but they did not have a response.

All eyes in the room looked to Thor and he swelled with pride for a brief moment, happy that he had earned enough respect for them to cede to him the final decision.

“Then it is settled. Asgard prepares for war. We await only the return of our spymaster to tell us what Laufey is doing and whether he has discovered the means to leave Jotunheim.”

The other warrior’s pounded the table, signaling their agreement.

After the meeting, Thor and Sif made their way to the training rooms in silent anger. Thor was proud that he managed to keep enough control to not start shouting at Sif there in the hallway. Sif looked similarly enraged.

The second they were alone in their training rooms, Thor shouted, “How dare you undermine me in front of the Council, Sif! We are on the brink of war and the last thing they need to see is weakness in their leader!”

“We are on the brink of war because you declared it so!” Sif shouted back, not afraid to insert herself in Thor’s space. “And I would never undermine you in front of warriors under your command. That much, you know. But this is the Warrior’s Council. If you do not intend for us to discuss what should be done freely and passionately, then you have no need of a council at all. Or is it that _I_ dared to defy you? Tell me, Thor, did you invite me to the Council as a distraction for the others and as a pawn you could control or did you genuinely desire my advice?”

Thor shrugged. “Loki was the one who told me to invite you.”

“Is that it?” Sif shouted. “Is it Loki who pulls the strings to send us into war with Jotunheim? I know he is your brother, Thor, now your lover, but we both know that for all his cleverness, Loki cannot be trusted to pursue any interest but his own. We must think - what is his game in all this?”

Thor shook his head, ashamed. “There is no game. Loki does not want to return to court and Loki cautioned me to do anything except what I did today.” 

“There is always a game with Loki. Like the one he is playing with you now.”

Thor practically growled at Sif, walking into her until she was forced to step back, her back to the wall. “Loki is _not_ playing a game with me. He loves me.”

“I don’t doubt that he does,” Sif replied. “He always has. But for Loki loving you does not mean giving you your freedom. That little display this morning? We both know that he could have easily hidden himself. No, he _wanted_ me to know about the two of you. He wanted me to know that he has control over you.”

“He doesn’t have control over me! Were you not listening, Sif? I just did the opposite of what he told me to do.”

“Or did he tell you to do that so that you would do the opposite _and_ feel guilty afterwards?”

Trying to figure out what Sif was saying made Thor’s head spin. “I do not believe that Loki is manipulating me. But even if he is, it is impossible to know what it is he actually wants and doing the opposite of what I believe to be right is most likely more disastrous than letting him have his way.”

Sif didn’t seem to have an argument for that, so she changed tactics. “Then if he is not manipulating you into war, then Loki agrees with me! Why won’t you listen to the both of us?”

“Sif, a moment ago you were trying to convince me to do anything but what Loki wants me to do and now you use him to support your own position?”

Sif shrugged. “I know your current plan of action is wrong. Loki knows it and I believe you do as well. At the next meeting of the Council I expect you to come to reason.”

And with that, Sif stalked out. Thor sat in silent contemplation for a moment, wondering what he needed to do now. He knew he had acted rashly and he trusted Loki’s counsel, as well as Sif’s. But it could be that the Jotuns were really preparing for war, even though Loki said it did not make sense. The Jotun were monstrous creatures with their own evil motivations and their own secret ways. Perhaps something else was driving them to war, something unknown to even Loki. Or maybe they just wanted war because they liked it. The history books made much speculation about their decision to invade Midgard all those years ago, but it had always seemed to be without reason to Thor. 

No, Thor would not recall the order to ready the troops. Even if the spymaster returned with good tidings, the exercise would be beneficial for the warriors. It would put them on guard and they could arrange for some large scale mock battles, which Odin had not commissioned in some time.

Thus resolved, Thor decided to continue with his plan for the afternoon - to head to the healing chambers and then return to his rooms to lay with Loki once again - hopefully before he told Loki about his decisions in Council. 

Thor did not like the Healing Chambers. Despite the warm golden lights and the homey feeling that the healers tried to project in the design of their space, no one had pleasant memories of the Chambers. Thor had worse memories than most. Normally children were not allowed inside unless they were ill and without the dangers of battle, children almost never needed the care of the main ward. But when they were children, Loki suffered from a terrible malady that caused him to periodically break into such fevers that he was confined to the Healing Chambers for weeks on end. In the delirium he would call out for Thor and not quiet until Thor was lying next to him, awake but forced into stillness by the heavy weight of the healing field around them. Thor forever associated the healing rooms with his brother’s pale sweat-drenched face and his screams and how Thor felt so utterly helpless to protect him.

Thor forced his heartbeat to calm as he approached the golden doors. A grown man, a warrior, should not feel such apprehension to enter friendly chambers that had only cured himself and those he loved. He did not feel the slightest trepidation entering a stronghold of giants or the nest of a dragon, but the place of his childhood nightmares still scared him. 

“Prince Thor!” Eir rushed over to Thor, eyeing him critically. It was probably Thor’s own fault that she reacted this way - he only came to her when grievously injured and could not convince Loki or one of the lower mages to heal him. 

After a moment spent inspecting him, Eir frowned. “What brings you here, my prince?”

Thor looked around the rooms. There was only one warrior in a healing sleep, but he still felt exposed. Perhaps he should just leave and return when there was no one else here.

“Well?” Eir demanded impatiently. He had always found her unnaturally abrasive for a healer, but it was refreshing to not be treated with complete deference every once in awhile. And Eir’s stern demeanor was effective in keeping Thor in compliance with her recovery plans.

“I have a question,” Thor replied reluctantly.

Eir followed his gaze to the one sleeping patient. “Would you prefer to speak in the Meeting Room?”

Thor did not find the Meeting Room more pleasant than the other parts of the Healing chambers - it had been where Eir had reluctantly delivered news of Loki’s fevers. Thor had felt even more powerless in the bright, calming space that was designed to disarm his rightful fear and sorrow. However, he did appreciate the privacy.

“Now,” Eir said, taking a seat on the comfortable chair opposite him. “What can I do for you?”

“As my father has Jotun blood, I would like a test of my fertility.”

Eir nodded, summoning a few supplies to grind with the mortar and pestle on the small table next to her chair. “Is there a particular reason you seek the test at this time?” Her voice was bland, not even particularly curious, but the impertinence of the question peeved Thor nonetheless.

“I do not see how it is relevant to you,” he snapped.

Eir sighed, putting down her work to lay a cool hand on top of Thor’s. “You have always been so fiercely determined to fight your battles alone, ever since you were a boy. I ask not because it is relevant to me, but because it is relevant to you and as a healer, I have a duty to care for you.”

“And how will telling you that help me.”

“Well, if you are seeking knowledge about your fertility in order to bear a child, then I can help prepare you. If you are seeking to avoid conception, there are potions and spells.”

“I already know a potion,” Thor replied proudly. He’d even used it to drug a prince.

“Of course. Your brother would have taught you his method. It is fairly complex and not necessary for those who do not have the highest levels of fertility. If you are closer to the range of most Aesir of mixed blood, I can cast a spell that only needs renewal once a year.”

Thor frowned. “So Loki is unusually fertile?” Thor asked, thinking of all those times they went together to collect the Jujubi eggs for the tea.

Eir laughed. “Your brother is so fertile he could become pregnant if someone looked at him wrong.”

Thor gaped. Perhaps that was why Loki was so unsociable. 

Eir took in Thor’s expression and laughed harder. “I say that in jest. But Loki has been cursed with a level of fertility closer to that of a Jotun. He developed that potion because the ordinary spells and potions would not work on him.”

“If they didn’t work, then he has been with child before?”

“Perhaps that is something that you should discuss with him yourself. Your brother did do the right thing and came for the fertility test the moment he felt he might desire to lay with men. It was hundreds of years ago. It surprises me that you have taken so long to come to me. Especially considering your recent courtship of Prince Seupu.”

Thor hated the palace gossips with a passion. “I am _not_ courting Prince Seupu.”

“But you do lay with men.”

Thor nodded. 

“But you have not allowed any man to take you?”

Thor shook his head. It was easier than explaining exactly what it meant to be considering this now.

“I assume that you intend to do so soon. Is your sudden change of heart due to a desire to conceive?”

Thor shook his head violently. Just because he was ready to entertain the idea of Loki taking him did not mean that he could stomach the thought of having a child, let alone carrying it himself. Sleipnir was enough work and he was a horse. Thor could not imagine how trying an Aesir child could be.

“Well, then, in the likely case that you are fertile, I can cast the anti-conception spell on you.” She handed over a glass of water with the paste she had been grinding dissolved within it. “Here, drink this and take off your chest plate.”

The green liquid tasted foul, but Thor complied. 

After Thor had finished the glass and stripped out of his armor, Eir reached out her hand, laying it over Thor’s stomach. Thor felt a warm, tingling sensation and then the skin under Eir’s hand glowed a placid white.

“Interesting,” Eir commented. “I would have thought that with your brother’s fertility being what it is, you would undoubtedly be fertile as well. But it seems he drew all of the luck in inheritance.”

“So I’m not fertile?” Thor asked.

“I’m sorry.”

“No, this is glorious news. I must tell . . .” Thor stopped himself before he could say Loki’s name. He hoped that Loki consented to return to court soon. Secrets and lies, even those of omission, were not among Thor’s talents. “My lover will be happy to hear of this as am I. Thank you, Eir. I try not to visit these rooms often, but I am appreciative of the work you do.”

He kissed Eir on the hand and practically ran down the corridor. Thor felt unburdened. He would never have to deal with the forced delicacy of being with child or the spells and potions needed to prevent it. Thor had been opposed to the act of being taken as well, but he found that with the fertility question out of the way, he was almost _excited_ about giving it a try. Perhaps he should have listened to Loki and had his fertility tested long ago.

Thor burst into his chambers to find Loki sitting in the middle of the bed, trying to coax Sleipnir up onto the mattress to take a nap with him, but the foal seemed suspicious of the way the mattress dipped beneath his hooves and whinnied and ran all the way outside in fear.

Thor took the opportunity to fling himself onto the bed, pinning Loki and devouring his lips in a questing kiss.

“Mmmm,” Loki hummed. “What has you so happy, Thor? Did the meeting go well?”

Thor frowned. In his trepidation and later elation he had completely forgotten about the council meeting. “It was not entirely satisfactory,” he hedged.

Loki rolled his eyes. “What did you do this time?”

“I may have ordered our warriors to assemble.”

Loki swatted him hard on the back of the head. “You did the one thing I told you not to!”

Thor smiled sheepishly. “I did not deploy them.”

“Oh, that makes it much better. Now we only have all the warriors of Asgard ramped up and ready for war and the citizenry terrified of what it might bring.”

“What is wrong with being ready for war?”

“Thor, we have had an unprecedented age of peace. We’ve had only a few skirmishes here and there, and yet our very culture demands that a man prove himself in battle. The warriors go on petty quests and sing tales of times you and I barely remember. Now that you have promised them the taste of war, it will be as difficult to pull them back as it is to return a beast to a cage.”

“But we will have war!” Thor exclaimed. “There is a great magical light coming from the Dawn-side of Jotunheim. What could it be if not a means of war?”

“If it is just a magical light, it could be anything in your imagining. You are the most bloodthirsty of all the bloodthirsty warriors in this kingdom so of course you see it as tool of war. We must wait and we must try to negotiate. Or have you forgotten already the greater war that looms in the void beyond the arms of the Yggdrasil? If Laufey intended to attack us, he would need the boon of surprise. He would be solicitous to our queries so that we would not discover his plans. As they say, a man carrying a dead body in a sack will follow all the rules of the tavern.”

“Maybe he does not care for surprise. The Jotun are vile, evil monsters. It is in their blood to make war. He has heard that the All-father sleeps and that his incompetent son is on the throne. He is mocking what he perceives to be my weakness.”

“Yes, Thor,” Loki used his most patronizing voice - the one Thor hated. “The Jotun have war in their blood and Laufey is a reckless and arrogant as you are. That’s why we have had peace for a millennium. That’s why he negotiated a treaty with our father. You must wait, at least until the Spymaster returns.”

“I have already promised Sif that I would do that.”

“Good, at least I know there is one on the Council who listens to reason.”

Thor laughed. “If you think Sif an ally, then you are mistaken. She has been accusing you of manipulating me.”

Loki smirked, rolling over so that he straddled Thor and pressing a soft kiss to his lips. “So what if I am?”

“I told her that if you are manipulating us then we are too stupid to figure out how, so we might as well just do what we otherwise would.”

“Mmmmm,” Loki murmured, giving Thor another lingering kiss. “That’s the smartest thing you’ve said since you came home.” Thor thrilled at the fact that Loki called his chambers home, but kept his joy to himself. “And even if I am manipulating you, it is no one’s interest to go to war with Jotunheim. Not yours, not Laufey’s, not Asgard’s, and certainly not mine. When the spymaster returns, I will go to Jotunheim myself if I have to in order to ensure peace.”

“And your determination to remain hidden?”

Loki sighed. “We are princes, Thor. It is useless to deny it. If the fate of the kingdom rests on our shoulders, what we want must come second.”

“And Sleipnir?”

“Surely I will not be in Jotunheim for long. Now, are you going to tell me why you were so happy when you walked in here? I doubt you were practically skipping because you put us on the brink of war.”

Thor grinned. His ego had taken a beating from Loki’s reprimand, but he was excited to tell Loki the news and to give him a great gift. “I went to Eir to have my fertility tested.”

A slow sweet smile dawned on Loki’s features. “So you would like for me to have you the way you have so enjoyed having me?”

Thor nodded, pulling Loki down against him for a lingering, passionate kiss. “The news is even better! I am not fertile so we need not worry about the consequences.”

It was horror to see the smile fall from Loki’s face. He pulled away, turning his back to Thor and sitting with his feet dangling off the edge of the bed. 

Thor frowned in confusion. “This is joyous news, Loki. Surely you did not wish to see me carrying your seed. As much as I love you and would love to one day make a family with you, you know that biologically we are brothers and cannot.”

Loki remained silent, so Thor grabbed him by the arm and forced him around to face Thor again. He would have an explanation.

“Thor,” Loki’s eyes were glassy but he still did not cry. “If you are not fertile and I very much am, we cannot be brothers. The rules of biological inheritance for that particular trait determine it to be so.”

Loki looked serious, but it could not be. Loki might be different than Thor in practically every way, but they fought together, played together, grew up together. They were brothers. Thor refused to believe that their parents had lied to them about that.

Loki waved his hand and Thor could see the slight mist of a tear evaporate from the corner of his eye. He turned to Thor and kissed him gently. “We should be happy. If we are not brothers, then we _can_ one day begin a family, maybe even wed. That is your grand dream, isn’t it?”

Thor did not have a grand dream. He was loath to admit it, but he never did spend much time thinking about the future. He knew that he loved Loki more than he ever thought possible. He did not want their relationship to end. But marriage and a family were not options so he hadn’t thought on them. 

But as much as he wanted Loki as lover, partner, even queen, he wanted him as a brother just as much. On one hand the fact that they might not be related legitimized their current relationship, but if their relationship had been leading to romance all along, it also invalidated the thousand years of brotherhood that Thor would not trade for anything in the universe.

“It cannot be true. You can’t make assumptions based solely on this one thing. I could have something else wrong with me that makes me infertile even though my inheritance suggests I should be. You could have had a fertility spell cast on you at some point. Or one of those random changes in inheritance occurred. Eir was surprised by the result, but she didn’t say anything about the possibility that we might not be related.”

“But it makes sense, Thor. It explains why we are so different, why we do not look alike, why you have absolutely no magical ability while I have an excess, why you are so strong while I have always been sickly, and why our father has always favored you. It even explains why mother was so concerned about me finding out a secret that she would use magic on you. I have long suspected that they have been keeping something of this magnitude from us.”

Loki moved to stand, but Thor did not let him. He used his strength to pull Loki down into a strong embrace. 

“Let me go, Thor. I want to be alone.”

Even if Thor had wanted to, he didn’t think he could convince his arms to release. “No. I will not release you so you can go shatter yourself in solitude. Even if we are not brothers, my love for you will not diminish. We must apply the same logic to the situation as you have applied to the Jotuns. There are many possible explanations and we must know for certain before we make conclusions.”

“And how are we going to know for certain?”

“I will investigate.”

Thor expected some comment about his naivety, utter lack of stealth, and limited deductive reasoning capacities, but Loki just nodded into his shoulder, no longer bothering to evaporate his tears.

Sleipnir returned at the sound of his father’s quiet sobs, even allowing Thor to bend down and scoop him up onto the bed so that his soft coat and sweet nature could provide much-needed comfort.


	15. Thor Odinson, Spymaster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor tricks Frigga into revealing the secrets of Loki's heritage.

Thor awoke, missing the warmth of Loki’s body beside him. It did not take long to discover that today Loki had made it out of the bedroom in order to feed Sleipnir. They were on the terrace eating some of the overgrown grass that had sprouted between the rose bushes. Thor pulled his clothes on hastily before joining them. 

Loki had cried himself to sleep in Thor’s arms the previous night, like he had not done since they were children and Loki was frustrated by his failings in combat lessons. Thor worried for him. Loki had not always been favored by their father and knowing that it was so most likely because he was not their father’s son by blood could only worsen Loki’s feelings of inadequacy. Thor wished, not for the first time, that his brother were not so sensitive. Of course, there was always the possibility that Thor was the unrelated one, but neither had bothered to indulge that notion. Thor looked very much like both their parents and shared many of their qualities, while Loki had always been different.

The real question, other than if Loki was actually correct in his deductions, was why their parents had bothered to hide such a fact. Adopting foundlings was considered a noble tradition on Asgard and would have been met with praise. There was something else going on and Thor was determined to find out what it was. He resolved to visit thier mother before the warrior inspections he and the Council had scheduled began.

As Thor exited onto the terrace, Loki transformed back into his Aesir form and pulled on a simple white tunic. He smiled at Thor, but the smile did not reach his eyes and when he spoke, there was a coldness there that had not been there before. It reminded Thor of how ruthless Loki could be when he was in a righteous mood. “Good morning, Thor.”

Thor immediately wrapped his arms around Loki from behind as they both watched Sleipnir investigate a frog that had found its way into the fish pond. They fit together perfectly. Loki was almost as tall as Thor, so he didn’t feel like a giant, but his slighter form was still the perfect size to be enveloped completely in Thor’s protective embrace. To Thor, this felt right. As brothers, they had always been physically close, but there had been a straining quality to it. Even though they never felt uncomfortable embracing, a part of Thor must have always subconsciously itched for more, because every previous touch, no matter how intimate, felt like a shadow of his true feelings.

He placed a kiss on the back of Loki’s neck and Loki turned, his voice still echoing that coldness that none of Thor’s affectionate touches could dispel. “Can you take Sleipnir with you when you assemble the warriors today?” Loki asked. “I am troubled by the magic in Jotunheim. I have books in my rooms and in the library that might shed light on the subject, but I will need the morning to locate them.”

Thor did not like the idea of explaining why he was bringing a foal to training, but Loki was probably the only one who could understand the magic on Jotunheim and it was a strategic advantage they could not afford to waste. What bothered Thor more was Loki’s clear determination to ignore the revelations of the previous evening. Thor understood that this was a different kind of strength - to keep emotions in reserve and soldier on with what needed to be done. It was not a skill either Thor or his father possessed. 

He at once admired the discipline it clearly took to pretend as though nothing had happened and worried that such shielding of emotion could lead to even more perverse outcomes. Thor remembered all the resentments Loki had kept hidden from him until recently and wondered if it would not have been better if Loki had told Thor long ago. Still, Loki was entitled to his grief, no matter what form it took. Thor would just have to be on alert for the day when it finally cracked the cool veneer that Loki now projected.

Thor kissed Loki softly. “I have promised to break my fast with our mother. But when I return, Sleipnir shall accompany me for the morning.” Thor had not spoken to his mother about dining together, but she had recently lamented that she did not see enough of her son outside of the formality of Court. It was only a small lie, but still Thor felt accomplished when Loki did not notice it. Perhaps he was learning.

He would need to be, considering the lies he planned to tell.

***

Frigga looked surprised to see Thor, but her surprise soon melted into genuine enjoyment. Thor relished in the feel of his mother’s comfort, lingering a moment too long when she hugged him to her. Thor had needed to be the strong one last night, providing comfort when he, too, felt confused and distraught both by the fact that Loki was not his brother and that the woman whose comfort he now craved had lied to them their entire lives.

“What is it, my darling?” Frigga asked. Her gaze was knowing and her expression so soft and motherly that Thor had to fight to remember that she was potentially a liar and certainly a woman who had used magic against her own son. 

Thor had always thought his mother lacked the ruthlessness to rule, with all of her soft smiles and her painful sympathy, but now he realized that she was every inch the Queen, with the ability to manipulate with her innocence and the will to do so. And now that the suspicion had grown in him, Thor forgot the woman whose shoulder he once cried upon and whose sweet voice sang the childhood lullabies that sent him into comfortable, dreamless sleep.

Thor remembered what Loki had said about a great lie. A great lie was a lie made up of as many scraps of truth that could be sewn together into a whole. It came sandwiched between truthful things and, if possible, was always accompanied by genuine emotion. 

Thor breathed deeply, like the moments of pregnant silence before battle. The first truth. “I have not been entirely honest with you, Mother.”

Frigga’s eyes flashed momentarily with betrayal and, surprisingly, greed. Thor realized that for all they had joked about the gossips of the Queen’s sewing circle, his mother genuinely hungered for and coveted all secrets. It was another kind of strength that Thor did not yet understand: the possession of knowledge.

Frigga eyed Thor critically, but remained calm, spreading butter and barberry jam over her morning sweetbread with little concern. She had used the same trick of nonchalance when they were young and Thor and Loki had gotten up to some mischief. Thor always broke even though Loki would always get back at him for it afterwards.

Thor ate his own meal, stalling. But his mother’s attention didn’t waver. She waited patiently for Thor to spill his secret.

“I know where Loki is. I have been sneaking off to see him.”

“I suspected as much,” Frigga replied cooly. “Where is he?”

“I cannot tell you,” Thor replied.

His mother just stared at him expectantly.

“You would not have me break my oath to him.”

Frigga sighed. “I fear many a terrible thing when the two of you work together, but I would not have you break your brotherly bond.” Thor felt relieved until she continued, “But I have not been pressuring you to reveal this to me, despite my suspicions. You have come to me of your own volition and, unlike your brother, you are incredibly reactionary. You came here specifically to tell me this because something has happened and you need me to intervene, oath or not.”

Here was the turn, the place where the lie fit so neatly. “Loki knows everything, mother. He has not shared it all with me, but he knows that we are not true brothers and nothing I say will convince him to return.”

Frigga looked heartbroken. Guilt, remorse, regret - they were all expressions that Thor was unaccustomed to seeing on the faces of either of his parents. “Thor, you must understand, it was an impossible decision. We knew that lying to our children was wrong, but we also did it for your own protection. The best of all possible worlds would be if you never found out.”

“But why?” Thor demanded. “The people would have smiled on your generosity for taking a foundling into your home. I would have loved Loki no less.”

Frigga laughed. “Have you learned so little of politics sitting beside me on the throne? The people would never have accepted a Jotun in the royal household.”

A Jotun? Thor felt his blood run cold. It couldn’t be, and yet it made more sense than anything Thor had heard in a long while. It explained Loki’s penchant for ice-magic, his imperviousness to the cold, the fevers when he was young, his strange fertility. It was more than not being brothers. Thor and Loki were not even the same species.

Not only that, but Thor had taken Loki. He had lain with a frost giant. It was not the same as Fandral’s sordid tales of the forbidden by unequalled passions he hoped to one day consummate. They said that making love to a frost giant would encase your heart in ice and ruin you for any other until the end of time. It had been intense and real and like nothing Thor had ever felt before. Was his love for Loki some frost giant enchantment that overwhelmed his rational mind - the part that proclaimed them to be brothers? 

Thor felt bile rise in him, not because he was disgusted by what had been an amazing act, but because with all the twisted lies, the secrets, the circumstances of their joining, Thor could no longer be sure that the previously-pure love he felt was genuine. Thor could abide by many things, but he could not stand the thought that he was not the master of his own fate.

Frigga stood, laying a gentle hand on Thor’s shoulder. “You did not know.” She sighed. “Of course, he would not tell you more than the essentials. My poor boy, he probably fears your reaction.” Her fingers ran up Thor’s arm and under his chin, tilting it up to look at her. “You would not reject him for this. I know you will not.”

“Of course I would not. I love him.” If only his mother knew how much . . . . “But how did this come to be? Why?”

“It was your father’s doing. Perhaps not a wise decision at the time, but he is impulsive and for the most part his impulses are for the better. After defeating Laufey, your father touched the Casket of Ancient Winters to steal it away from Jotunheim and thus cripple Laufey’s power. But your father has Jotun blood in his veins. He said it compelled him.”

“It compelled him?”

“Your brother knows more of this than either of us, Thor, but it is said among the mages that such objects of great power have their own intentions. Their reach across the universe is profound and their knowledge of its secrets breathtaking. Their consciousness is not as ours and their intentions are obscured, their motivations complex beyond all imagining. But they manipulate the threads of fate as though they are harpsichord strings. We still do not know for what purpose the Casket compelled your father to search deeper in the palace chambers, to find a Jotun babe, abandoned, too-small for his kind. We still do not know if Loki is meant to be a snake in our house planted by an artifact loyal to only its own kind, or a boon meant to draw our two peoples together.”

If Thor had felt sick before, he felt even worse now. A snake in their house? Had Thor missed this fear in his parents all along? He most likely had, but Loki would not have overlooked it. Perhaps all his imagined slights were not so imagined. 

“Don’t look at me that way, Thor. I know better than anyone that we are mere pawns of fate. I never loved Loki less for fear of the future. He is my son and from the moment I held him in my arms I have loved him fiercely.” 

Thor knew he was wrong to doubt his mother, who had always favored Loki. It was his father that could be blamed - for all of this. “And father?”

“He loves your brother dearly, though in recent years he has grown suspicious of his intentions, perhaps rightfully so. Loki is trully of another species to Odin, as much as he is Odin’s son. I fear that neither one understands the other, but that is also a common problem between fathers and headstrong sons.”

“Loki is not a snake in our house, mother,” Thor protested. “For all his tricks, he has made me a better man and he will make me a better king. The fate the Casket has chosen for us - it must be a boon.”

Frigga sighed. “Yes, but a boon for whom? I have spent ages at my loom in meditation on the subject and the only conclusion I can draw is that your brother, as Laufey’s son, is the Casket’s true master. _It_ drew your father to it in order to save Loki’s life. Odin won that war through prowess in battle and because Laufey was never able to use the Casket on him. It lost the war for Jotunheim and it brought Loki, its true master, here with us. It is a boon for Loki, but what of the rest of us?”

“Loki is my brother,” Thor declared. “I am as bound to him as the Casket is. What is a boon for Loki is a boon for me and shall be a boon for Asgard.”

Frigga studied him carefully. As his mother, she could crack open any mask and tear open any door holding back secrets. She let out a harsh gasp. “Thor? Have you and Loki . . .”

Thor could not bear to hear her finish that sentence and pull his most painful secret to the light of day. 

“I’m sorry mother, but I must take my leave. The warriors must be prepared for battle. Now that I know the full extent of this, I hope to be able to convince my brother to return.”

He stalked off before Frigga could stop him.

***

Sleipnir had proved to be a useful tool in inspiring the men. When Thor asked Sif how he was going to explain babysitting an eight-legged foal, she had just rolled her eyes and said that she would take care of it.

Sif taking care of it turned out to be an inspiring speech in which she talked about creativity in battle. She talked about how there had been no changes to the basic qualities of a horse in milenia, with some stronger and others faster, but not drastic changes. Except now, an eight legged-foal was born that could outrun even the biggest racing stallions and outsmart a few of the stupidest men. Sif spoke of how the last war with Jotunheim had been a close battle and that the battle techniques that had worked for millennia needed creative new approaches. Asgard would find them.

Thor had planned to tell the warriors that he’d misplaced the foal’s mother so all in all it proved much better to allow Sif to handle things. 

The warriors were prepared for battle and even more eager than Thor anticipated. Perhapse Loki had been right when he talked about unsated bloodlust. Thor hoped that it would not matter - that King Laufey would prove as untrustworthy as Thor had always believed him to be and they could go to war. Thor had faith that his warriors would fight well and hard and the war would end quickly, quickly enough to prepare for this enemy that Loki insisted lurked beyond the arms of Yggdrasil. Loki underestimated the good it could do to give the warriors some real fighting practice.

Even though war was supposedly a grave thing, Thor could still not seem to focus on the battle preparations, not with the new revelation that Loki was a Jotun himself swirling around in his head. It didn’t change anything about the love Thor felt for him. And it didn’t make Thor trust him less, except to maybe make sure to keep him away from the Casket and its schemes. But it would change things between them. Thor didn’t know how exactly, but he knew that Loki would be deeply affected by it. Thor thought back to all of the things he had said and still believed about the Jotun (the ones who had not be raised differently). They were disgusting monsters who deserved the war that was upon them. Loki would not forget those words. Loki almost never forgot anything.

Thor braced himself as he and Sleipnir walked up to the gate of the garden terrace. Sleipnir rushed inside immediately, happy to see his father. Loki did not stop what he was doing at Sleipnir’s excited antics, but petted the little horse absently when he nudged at his father.

Loki had cleared Thor’s desk and moved it over to the window overlooking the terrace. In the golden sunlight that spilled in through the window, he looked radiant, surrounded by books and manuscripts with a relaxed, but pensive expression on his face. He had abandoned the comfortable tunics he had seemed to favor since he transformed into an Aesir once again, and was instead wearing a more casual variation on his ceremonial robes - green and black with interwoven silver and gold plates. The difference was that this version had no sleeves, revealing Loki’s thin but well-defined arms and the pale skin of his shoulders. Thor had, admittedly, worried that now that he knew Loki’s true heritage, he might be physically repulsed by him. But Loki was as beautiful as ever, not a spec of blue skin or red eyes to be seen. Even if Jotun blood ran through his veins, Loki had been raised on Asgard as Thor’s brother, with Aesir traditions and values and the warmth of the sun and people who loved him instead of in a barren wasteland by hateful frost giants.

After one too many nudges and little nips, Loki sighed, magicked away his clothes, and stood, transforming instantly in order to feed Sleipnir. Thor had been used to giving Loki his space when he was nursing. It was a little too surreal for Thor anyway, to be reminded that Loki was someone’s mother. In fact, Thor was still finding it difficult to reconcile that Loki and the horse were one and the same. Still, he felt compelled to walk up to Loki and run his hands through the long white mane as he had so many times in the past year. Loki nuzzled him, letting Thor rest his head against his neck. 

After Sleipnir had finished and was curled up in a patch of sunlight for his post-feeding nap, Loki transformed back, unfortunately including his clothes. Thor pounced anyway, pushing Loki back against the big oak tree in the center of the garden, kissing him deeply.

Loki returned the kiss lazily for a moment before pulling back and looking Thor straight in the eyes. “How was your day?” he asked pointedly.

“Good,” Thor replied between kisses as he nipped his way down Loki’s neck and across his bare shoulders. “Sleipnir was popular with the warriors. I think they are all fantasizing about riding eight-legged horses now.”

Loki tilted his head to accomodate Thor’s ministrations, but had not magicked away the stupid metal bodicepiece, which appeared to be the only way to get in and out of it. “Remove this!” he commanded.

But instead of complying, Loki pushed Thor away, meeting his eyes with a steady gaze. “As much as I appreciate your fervor, I know it to be a distraction.”

It was no such thing. Thor genuinely wanted Loki and he wanted Loki to know that he’d made love to him even after finding out his true heritage. It was the only thing that would convince Loki that it didn’t matter to Thor - that nothing could diminish Thor’s love for him. 

Thor dived back in, ignoring the breastplate in order to focus on pulling at Loki’s pants instead. Loki swatted Thor’s hands away, even though Thor felt him hardening. He grinned. “Tell me you do not want this.”

“I don’t want it,” Loki replied, though less scathingly than if he really did not want it. “I know you spoke with mother about my parentage.”

Thor said nothing. With his full attention on Thor, Loki would see through a lie immediately.

“And I can tell by the way that you refuse to meet my eyes that you have an answer.”

Thor leaned forward again, pressing a delicate kiss against Loki’s lips. “Please,” he begged, “forget what you think you know for a minute. Let us have this.”

Loki hesitated, but after staring at Thor for what seemed like an enternity, he nodded subtly, magicking the armor away and letting Thor kiss him. Loki was passive at first, allowing Thor to lead him back into the bedroom like a sheep or a lamb, not the powerful creature that Thor knew him to be. He lay back on the bed, spreading his legs wantonly, but the fire was gone from his eyes. Thor did not appreciate the submission.

He bent down, pressing punishing bites and conciliatory kisses on Loki’s pale skin and teasing his hardness mercilessly, never letting Loki find release no matter how many times he brought him to the edge. 

Thor thought Loki would let the torture continue for ages, but finally there were strong fingers in Thor’s hair, digging into his scalp and forcing him down. But Thor was always the stronger of the two of them, so he pulled away, surging forward to trap Loki’s arms down against the bed as he kissed him, releaved to feel his passion returned. Loki stood no chance of overpowering Thor by brute strength, but he waved his hand and suddenly they were flipped around, Loki straddling Thor with a wicked grin on his lips.

When Loki pulled his hands away, Thor was surprised that his hands could not follow, pegged above him by magic. Another spell caused colorful sparks to dance down his skin, some hot and other’s freezing cold as they brushed over Thor’s most sensitive areas, soliciting growls of pain and pleasure.

Loki used his hand on Thor’s manhood, but it did not feel like a hand, but rather some tight moist space that seemed to squeeze and vibrate, as tight around Thor as a glove. He arched up off the bed, thrusting or trying to buck Loki off; he couldn’t really tell which. And when he thought he might come, a small chain materialized out of nowhere wrapping itself tightly around the base of his manhood. 

“You are devious,” Thor protested.

“You started it,” Loki replied, while sliding himself up Thor’s body to kiss him. Thor rutted against Loki’s lithe body, cursing his lover’s ruthelessness when more magic materialized to pin Thor down.

After what seemed like ages of this exquisite torture, Loki pulled back, summoning a vial of oil and reaching back to prepare himself.

“Wait!” Thor protested.

Loki arched an eyebrow. “You would remain like that?”

Thor probably looked like an animal on a skewer prepared for a roast, but he didn’t care. “I want you to take me. I need to feel it.” He did not mention that this might be their last chance, before Loki knew the secret and things _changed_ between them.

Loki seemed to understand the melancholy behind Thor’s words, because with a wave of his hand, Thor was free again, all spells stopped. He surged up, pullling Loki to him with a desperate kiss. “Please, Loki, give me this.”

Loki relented, kissing Thor deeply as his slick fingers quested. They felt like a shiver over Thor’s hole, making him thrust sharply into Loki’s hip at the sensation.

“Eager, are we?” Loki chuckled, kissing down Thor’s chest to suck at Thor’s hardness as a distraction from the fingers that plunged into Thor unexpectedly.

Thor bucked up into Loki’s mouth instinctively, but Loki did not pause, his fingers massaging, pistoning, spreading, until they hit a spot that made Thor choke on a gasp. He had imagined it would be good, but he had never imagined this good. He nearly bit through his lip in the effort not to cry out.

Loki returned to give Thor a quelling kiss while his fingers probed. “Be as loud as you like. I have muffled the sound.”

Thor responded with a long, gasping moan as Loki’s fingers continued to worry at that one spot that drove Thor wild. 

“Are you ready?” Loki purred. “Ready to lose this maindenhead to me once and for all?”

Thor nodded, too incoherent now with pleasure to speak.

Loki removed his fingers, eliciting a whimper from Thor before using another spell to flip Thor over, positioning a pillow beneath his hips. He pressed light kisses to Thor’s neck and shoulders, whispering. “It will be easier this way. Just relax and let me take you. Trust me.”

Thor nodded. He trusted Loki. He would give him this. He would give him everything.

Thor tensed a little when he felt Loki’s hardness press up against his hole, but a few soothing whispers and caresses had him relaxing again. The intrusion was not painful when Loki slid home, but Thor’s instict was to tense, to throw this person who would dare breach him off. But Thor held still as Loki pressed flush against him, breathing in deep and slow in order to summon the power to still himself.

He pressed a kiss against the back of Thor’s neck, whispering, “You are doing splendingly, Thor. You are wonderful. Just like that.”

And then Loki moved, slowly at first, eliciting moans between pleasure and pain from Thor before he once again found that secret spot that transformed those little moans into harsh, wonderful gasps.

Thor knew that Loki was ice at his core, but the fire he lit in Thor’s body burned like a great forest-destroying blaze. Thor pushed back into Loki, then forward into the bed. He bucked and moaned like some wild beast in heat, because it was simultaneously too much and not enough. At some point, the sparks of magic returned, wrapping their way around his body like the hands of many lovers, touching every sensative, secret spot, even the ones that Thor did not think Loki had discovered yet. 

Loki hitched Thor up and back onto him, driving himself inside deeper still and wrapping his hand once again around Thor’s own hardness. It was too much and Thor spilled his seed with a scream, grunting and moaning though the aftershooks as Loki finished himself with a few more deep thrusts into Thor’s body.

Another spell summoned a bowl of warm water and a soft cloth that Loki used to clean them. His eyes were lidded and he looked at Thor with such reverance that despite his exhaustion, Thor pulled Loki’s pliant body to him, kissing him deeply. “I love you,” Thor said as he drifted off to sleep with Loki curled loosly at his side.

His last thought before dreams overtook him was that when they awoke from this pleasant doze, everything would have to change.


	16. Blue Skin, White Masks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor reveals the secret of Loki's heritage. Asgard goes to war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies to Frantz Fannon for co-opting the title of his legitimate academic work on racial psychology for the title of a chapter in an incestuous slash fanfiction.

Thor awoke much later than anticipated. Night had fallen, but the moon was full and with the doors and windows flung open to allow them to monitor Sleipnir on the terrace, there was plenty of light to trace the long line of shadow that fell ominously across the bed from the figure hunched there in silent contemplation.

Loki sat perched at the foot of the bed. Moonlight made his pale skin glow ethereally, making Thor wonder if Loki’s strange otherworldly beauty and the way light seemed to sometimes not obey its own rules in his presence was a sign of his heritage, of whatever illusion allowed him to appear Aesir.

Loki’s eyes were dark, fathomless as he stared into the distance. He seemed to study Thor but simultaneously look beyond, caught in some eddy in the flow of the magic of the universe.

“It is time,” Loki whispered.

“How long have you been awake?” 

“Long enough. I dozed but could not sleep. You, on the other hand, have slept almost until dawn.” 

Thor smiled a little, remembering how thoroughly Loki had exhausted him. “You destroyed me, brother. It is no wonder I needed rest. But you should have woken me.”

“There are great changes afoot, Thor. As ruler, you will need this brief respite. Besides, you would not blame me for clinging to the illusion a little longer.”

Of course Thor did not blame him. He would have delayed this inevitable trial as long as he could. 

“You spoke with mother about my heritage and now you must deliver the knowledge she has granted you,” Loki remarked. Though his voice feigned indifference, the pain and conflict in his eyes was clear.

Thor met Loki’s gaze for long moments, gathering the courage to speak.

“Your silence is answer enough, Thor. We are not brothers, as I suspected.”

Loki’s eyes shone like diamonds in the moonlight. He awaited Thor’s denial and Thor lamented that he could not provide it.

“You will always be my brother, Loki. We grew up together, played together, fought by each other’s sides for all the time I can remember existing. I don’t know if we are brothers or lovers or something else. But the fact that we are not related does not change how or how much I love you.”

Thor reached out, pulling Loki to him for a lingering kiss. He pretended he did not feel the damp brush of tears against his cheek, though he longed to wipe the tears away. He would not add wounded pride to the list of his brother’s many emotional injuries. 

“Sentiment,” Loki pronounced, but he did not bother to elaborate on whether or not he found sentiment to be a positive quality.

Thor pulled himself out from beneath Loki in order to put on a pair of trousers and a tunic. He pulled open Loki’s borrowed drawer, noting that it now seemed to be magicked to contain the entirety of Loki’s wardrobe. He tossed his brother a tunic as well. He did not think he could have the rest of this conversation while naked. By the end of it they would both be stripped bare. Clothing would be a petty shield against the raw scrape of emotions that was to come. 

Recognizing that Thor intended something more formal, Loki magicked a glowing white ball into existence. It brightened the room by intensifying the moonlight, lending their surroundings no warmth. Loki looked even more beautiful under its light. Even the dark bags beneath his eyes and the sad downward tilt of his mouth looked breathtaking to Thor. 

He sat down next to Loki on the edge of the bed, clasping Loki’s cool hands in his. Was the cool drying of Loki’s skin also a fact of his heritage? “There is more.”

Loki nodded. Intelligent curiosity battled with pain and hesitance in his features. 

“You were a foundling, but not of Asgard. Father found you in the palace after he defeated the frost giants in the last war. You were abandoned by your father, King Laufey.”

Thor squeezed Loki’s hands in support, but Loki’s body was stiff and tense all over. He looked away from Thor. There was such confusion and hurt in his expression that Thor wanted nothing more than to draw his brother into a warm embrace. But Loki needed to sort through the truth of the revelation before he could accept comfort.

“So I am one of these horrible, vile, evil creatures against whom you are so desperate to wage war? I am one of the monsters that parents teach their children to fear at night?” Loki hissed. He pulled away from Thor in order to stand and pace. 

“No,” Thor insisted, infusing his voice with every scrap of persuasiveness he could find. “You are the same beautiful, clever, mischievous, sometimes misguided brother who has stood by my side for a thousand years. You may be Jotun of blood, but you were raised an Aesir.”

Loki paused in his pacing and Thor took the opportunity to stand and embrace him. Loki return the embrace for a moment, but when he pulled back, tears were flowing in earnest. “But I am not like other Aesir, Thor. I had always wondered at my difference. It is not simply my affinity for magic or my difference in physical abilities. There is a darkness in me,” Loki spat the confession as though it was being jerked out of him unwilling. “It is a sadistic impulse, a will to power. It has been a struggle to confine myself to simple pranks, when I would smite all those who stand against me. Though I have long despaired your skill at it, I have had to sabotage my own chances at ruling, though I suppose such efforts are now moot: father would not allow a Jotun to sit on the throne of Asgard. He has right to deny me, for I fear what I would do with such power.”

Thor frowned. He had never once feared himself. He feared what mistakes he might make out of ignorance, but he trusted himself to make decisions correctly to the best of his abilities. He had never once wavered in his conviction that he was a good man. “But if you are aware of this danger, surely you would be able to counter it.”

“It is not so simple. But I suppose it would be futile to expect you to understand the struggle of self-restraint, considering that you so rarely practice it.”

“I would trust you on the throne,” Thor replied, ignoring the insult. “And if you suffer from such fear, I would have you rule by my side.” 

“And I suppose, knowing that you are making love to one of the creatures you hate so much is of no consequence to you?”

Thor shrugged, glad that he had taken Loki to bed before starting this conversation. Thor had always been better at speaking through actions than words. “I think my previous actions have said all there is to say on the subject.” Just in case Loki was not still convinced, he cupped Loki’s chin and kissed him once again. 

Loki deepened the kiss, pushing Thor back onto the bed so that he was laying between Thor’s spread thighs. Loki pawed at Thor’s tunic, but as eager as Thor always was for Loki’s body and as much as he wanted to give Loki everything, this could not possibly be what Loki needed at the moment.

And surely enough, even after long moments of soft sensual kisses, Loki’s cheeks were still damp with tears and his sex still soft. He pulled back from kissing, burying his face in Thor’s chest with a frustrated huff. After Thor had a moment to calm his own arousal, Loki asked, “Why do you think he did it? Why did he not leave me to die?”

Thor didn’t think omitting his mother’s strange theories of objects with wills of their own qualified as a lie. Thor justified it by deciding that it was too ridiculous to mention. “I do not pretend to understand the machinations of the All-Father. I only know that I am glad that he brought you here.”

“You would have a Jotun snake in the House of Odin, threatening to usurp your own position?” The similarity to their mother’s words sent a chill down Thor’s spine.

“I prefer to see it as a boon. We are different in every way, puzzle pieces fitting so perfectly together that I refuse to believe that the Norns had no part in entangling the tendrils of our fates. I have physical strength and skill in battle and you are skilled in sorcery. I win the admiration of the citizenry with my guilelessness and you are so incredibly clever and skilled at politics. I am direct and confident but sometimes blind, while you see all in your scheming but sometimes lack true purpose to guide your machinations. We are perfect compliments, so much stronger together than we are apart. I cannot imagine why we would be made this way if not destined to rule as one.”

“We could be destined to be enemies,” Loki offered.

Thor laughed. He couldn’t help but place a kiss on the tip of Loki’s nose. “I could no more be your enemy than I could sprout wings and fly off into the sun.”

Loki laughed at the image, but once their laughter had faded, Loki still looked uncertain. Thor did not know what more he could say to convince Loki that the fact of his Jotun heritage changed nothing.

“I suppose to explains much,” Loki mused. “I do not have to fear some secret illness that will one day destroy me; the fevers must have been due to my body adjusting to these warm climes. And my affinity for ice magic makes much more sense now as does the fact that I am never cold. Then there’s the fertility. I feel less cursed by it now that I know it is natural and not some unlucky inheritance. And now I know that all of my efforts to win Father’s favor failed because I was inherently inferior in his eyes and not because I did not try hard enough.”

“Father loves you, Loki,” Thor insisted. “Mother too. He has always been stingy with his approval, but that does not reflect his love.”

“He holds affection for me, no doubt. But his love for me has never equalled his love for you.”

“He is more affectionate towards me because we share common interests and, yes, a common way of thinking. But he has always loved you. Remember how he worried he was during your fevers? I think he threatened to exile some of the healers if you did not recover.”

“Fear for losing his ill-gotten foundling to the very fact of his abduction, perhaps.”

“And how he made a decree that he would face any in battle who picked fun at your affinity for sorcery?”

“It is in the best interest of the crown to have control of a sorcerer as powerful as I.”

“And how from the first time I can remember he has told us both that we were born to be kings.”

“But only one can have the throne to Asgard.”

Thor poked Loki in the sensitive area above his hip. “Must you always be so stubborn? Accept that Father loves you. It is in his every glance, plain as day, if you only bother to look.”

Loki did not appear to be fully persuaded, but Thor did not have time to further convince him because suddenly they heard the soft bell that sounded when the door opened. 

“Thor! Loki! I do not care if you are busy making dirty, incestuos love,” Sif shouted from the entry room. “I come bearing urgent news.”

“Is there a single person in this kingdom who does not have free access to your chambers?” Loki grumbled, rolling off of Thor with a huff.

“It is all your own fault for refusing to change the spellwork when I asked you to.”

Sif only spared an eyeroll for the unkempt bed and the disheveled state of Thor’s tunic and his hair, rather than waste time on her usual sarcastic comments. Thor looked over at Loki to find that he looked perfectly together - hair slicked back, dressed in his ceremonial armor, missing only the helmet. Even the tears and the dark bags under his eyes had been cleared. Of course Loki would not want to show weakness in front of Sif.

“The spymaster has returned,” Sif panted as she gathered her breath from running to them. “Ve was right, the old bastard. Laufey is raising the hill giants from their slumber.”

Thor’s blood boiled. He had shown admirable restraint waiting this long, but Laufey could not be allowed to amass more troops. He was flying in the face of the treaty and surely testing Thor’s resolve. If Asgard continued to watch passively while Laufey raised an army, Thor would not deserve the crown. No, Laufey needed to be taught his place. And if he needed to have the battlefield stained with his blood every millennium in order for him to remember it, Thor would be happy to oblige.

“He gathers an army!” Thor shouted. “This is surely an act of war. We cannot tolerate it. We must attack before Laufey can finish marshalling his troops.”

“You do not know that they are troops!” Sif pointed out. “Laufey could have some other purpose. Thor, you must send a diplomatic mission to Jotunheim. Find out from Laufey why he is doing this. Give him a chance to avoid war. It does not make sense for him to start this now after so many years of peace.”

“Why send a diplomatic mission when he already has a representative in you, Sif? Of course we strive for peace, but when war comes to us, we must face it bravely.”

“This is not bravery, Thor!” Sif exclaimed. “This is your lust for battle. You are but a tool practically made for war and thus to you every action looks like the perfect excuse for it. War is not to be taken lightly, especially not war with the Jotun. The Elders are right about one thing. You and I are too young to remember the last war with the Jotun. The Jotun were merciless and they needed to be stripped of all before they would submit. The scars of that war have healed, but there are those of us who still feel the cost. It took Odin’s eye. It took my mother’s first husband and broke her heart. It took most of Asgard’s resources and we shall not risk the stability of our kingdom on a folly. Only when diplomacy has failed should we consider war.”

“Sif, you are one of the fiercest warriors in the Realm, but you are weak of resolve,” Thor replied, burning with anger at Sif’s foolishness. “Perhaps I made a misstep, appointing a woman to the Warrior’s Council. You are too soft.”

Thor half expected the slap, but he did not retract his statement. He did not know why he had appointed Sif to the Council if she was only going to be a thorn in his side. Sif was supposed to be his ally, not fight him at every turn. 

“The Jotun insult us at every opportunity. Laufey flaunts his defiance, knowing that we go to war reluctantly. We cannot allow for rebellion in the Realms. If we continue to accede to Laufey’s treaty breaches, what is to stop Alfheim and Misheim and even Midgard from rebelling? We cannot fight wars on all those fronts. We must make an example of Laufey - show the rest that Asgard is still strong. We know that we currently outmatch Laufey’s army, but we do not know how many Hill Giants lay slumbering. Laufey may be able to raise enough to breach our defenses.”

“And if he does? Laufey does not have the means to leave Jotunheim without the Casket of Ancient Winters. If we do not open the Bifrost, his army with starve itself in the empty nothingness of that wretched world. If Laufey intends war, he intends to fight it on Jotunheim where his people have the advantage of the ice. You will be delivering our warriors for his slaughter. Then all the Realms will know of the stupidity of our Prince and attack us while Odin still sleeps.”

“And if Laufey _does_ find a way into Asgard?”

“ _Then_ we fight.” Sif turned to Loki, who had been sitting on the bed, staring at a spot just beyond Sif’s left shoulder. She narrowed her eyes in suspicion. “You have been incredibly quiet, Loki. Surely you agree with me that it is a strategic blunder to send warriors to Jotunheim where Laufey can fight them when they would be impotent if we simply left them alone.”

Loki rose slowly, still not meeting Sif’s eyes. His voice was low and steady, as if in a trance. “The Jotun are vile, bellicose creatures.” Thor wanted to protest out of consideration for Loki’s own heritage, but he could not do so without revealing the secret to Sif. “They are stubborn and easily wronged and Laufey is the stubbornest and most resentful of them all. He quests for a path into Asgard. He would have the Casket and would stop and nothing to get it.”

“But _can_ he,” Sif pleaded. “You know it doesn’t matter how much he wants it if he has no way to come here.”

“There are passages between the realms that do not require the Bifrost. Such passages exist between Jotunheim and Asgard.”

“So he can!” Thor crowed.

“No,” Sif slapped at Thor impatiently. “It is possible, but Laufey can’t if he doesn’t know how to navigate the passages.” Sif frowned. “You said he quests for them. How do you know that?”

Loki grimaced, as though the secret was being tortured from him instead of flowing freely as a response to Sif’s most reasonable question. “I used such passages yesterday in order to gather more information.”

“You went to Jotunheim unprotected!” Thor shouted. The idea of Loki on that icy world all alone sent a lightning bolt of protectiveness through Thor. “You said you were in the library.”

Loki smirked viciously. “I lied.”

Thor breathed deeply, trying to control his anger. He was angered at Loki for lying and for putting himself in danger, but most of all for retreating from the sweet, open man who made love to Thor so earnestly. Would they never be beyond tricks and lies? Would he ever know the true workings of Loki’s mind? “You have had this ability to travel between worlds undetected and you never saw fit to tell me?”

Loki shrugged. “You did not need to know. I am telling you now, which should suffice.”

Thor wanted to rage, berate Loki for his insufferable smugness, for daring to hide such vital things about his life from Thor, but Sif interrupted. “And when you were there, what did you see?”

Loki finally stood, but his voice was no less subdued. It scared Thor, the calm with which he turned to Sif and said. “We will go to war with Jotunheim.”

Thor felt his breath was stolen from him in that moment. He hungered for war with the Jotun, against Laufey, who spit in the face of Thor’s authority. But he had expected Loki to hold him back. Only days ago, Loki had told Thor that he would seek a diplomatic solution personally before they went to war. 

Sif, too, seemed surprised. “You were opposed to the idea of war. What have you seen that has changed your mind?” she demanded.

“Nothing, has changed my mind about the nature of the Jotun,” Loki replied coldly. “But I have realized that our army is strong and there are magics available to me, should I chose to fight, that shall make our victory almost assured. Send the warriors to Jotunheim and I will join you in a matter of days. We will finish this campaign before the All-Father awakes and bring the Jotun into line.”

Sif, too, was enraged, stepping up to Loki, tensed for a fight. “What is your game, trickster?”

Loki stepped away from her fluidly. “The only game is the victory of Asgard and our continued supremacy throughout the realms. But I put you on the Council, Sif, because your opinion has its own merits. You may argue your point and you may yet win.”

“You know that with Thor joining the Elder warriors in their warlust, I have no chance of arguing my point.”

“Perhaps you should learn to be more persuasive, then.” Loki turned to Thor, giving him a soft, lingering kiss on the lips. “Lay siege to the palace, even though the majority of Laufey’s warriors no longer reside there. I will join you in three days time.” And with that he turned, vanishing mid-step.

“Thor!” Sif exclaimed. “Did you see that?”

Thor shrugged. “Loki has long mastered powers of invisibility and elemental travel. He no doubt has preparations to make, as do we all.”

“I meant how he controls you. He gives us orders as though he were king!”

“Loki does not hunger for the throne, Sif. He is _helping_ us. Can’t you see that?”

“No, he does not need to hunger for the throne while he has control over you. He pulls your strings like a pupetmaster. Is the promise of his flesh really so intoxicating that you abdicate your free will?”

“It has nothing to do with our status as lovers, Sif. Over the past year I have learned the hard way that my brother is much more skilled in these matters than I. He has been by my side my entire life and kept you safe from harm in many a battle. We must trust him.”

“And if this is a ploy to lure you into a misstep so large that the All-Father must remove you from succession?”

Thor could not reveal all the reasons why Loki would never be next in line for the throne. He certainly could not reveal Loki’s heartfelt confession that he feared his own power. Ironically, Loki agreed with Sif in this.

When Thor did not answer, Sif pressed onwards. “How do we know that he is not in league with Laufey? Loki is the only one we know of capable of traveling between the worlds without the Bifrost. The last place he should be is on Jotunheim, within Laufey’s grasp. And the last place we should send our warriors is into a battle we could easily avoid if we simply kept the source of his power here with us.”

“Watch your tongue, Sif. I will hear no more seditious words from you against your Prince. If you do not trust Loki, then trust me when I swear that Loki has only the best intentions of Asgard at heart.” 

Thor would, however, keep in mind Sif’s warning of Loki being a desirable target for his ability to travel between worlds. Thor had no hope of keeping Loki safe in the palace if he wanted to fight, but he would not leave his side for a moment once he arrived on Jotunheim. Moreover, he had a feeling that Loki’s turmoil over his heritage had not yet been resolved. He would need Thor’s support, now more than ever, since they were fighting a war against his people. 

Sif’s rebellion had not quieted, but she looked resigned now instead of angry.

“Now, return to your home and ready yourself for war,” Thor ordered. He knew that despite their disagreements, Sif would fight loyally by his side and Loki’s once they were immersed in battle. “I will call the Council to meet at first light and we will be in Jotunheim before the day is done.”

Sif pressed her fist to her breast and gave a slight bow, not as deep as her usual. “Yes, my prince.”


	17. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Casket of Ancient Winters awaits its fate.

The Casket of Ancient Winters glowed a cool, steady hum, radiating patience in its vault of age-old relics. Formed of stars, knowledgeable of many Realms, beautiful, cold, deadly. It waited.

Missing from these lifeless chambers was the gentle hammer, so weak of will. Its heart was black, dense with the gravity of a dying star. It could suck in whole planets with its weight, but it restrained itself - only making itself so heavy as to remain inert or to do the bidding of its master. So much potential, squandered in its mercy. Pathetic.

And hidden behind a wall, the great subservient beast that kept leashed the fire of a supernova beneath its visor. Dead, but for its slavery to its master. It fancied itself a protector, but the Casket needed protection from no one.

Perhaps only the gauntlet could be called kin. Perhaps only it also swam in the river of potential that was the universe. With the hand of a servant in its grasp, it dipped down into that river, plucked out a pebble, made a small eddy, brought intention collapsing into destruction. Its designs were grand in scope and it picked its servants with impunity. Only the most ruthless, the most grand, the ones with similar terrible visions would sate its needs. The gauntlet loved Chaos. Its passion burned through eternity, but why bother muddling in chaos in a world of universal entropy? The gauntlet knew much, but how petty, its impatience.

The Casket breathed in chaos and spit out beauty. It brought life and took it away as easily. It did not feel pleasure, as such, but it followed the blazing path of fate, of universal intention. It watched alternate worlds spiral away, worse in some indefinable way. The Casket hungered for rightness and despised that which would lead the universe astray. It was an architect, a consciousness that dealt in possibility, anchoring the foundations that tethered this reality to its purpose. 

The Casket felt the footsteps in the waves of the air, in the materials and elements that surrounded it. It had known the sound of those footsteps since before their maker had been born. The Casket’s bearer had arrived. It was not pleasure, but rightness that sung in its frozen heart.

A solitary figure descended the steps, easily casting the guards into deep sleep. The creature’s heart beat with the pulse of the universe. It lived in the same universal flow as the Casket and the gauntlet, but how low the flesh, how limited to keep the creature hidden from its divine nature. 

The bearer approached its birthright with caution, hands trembling as it reached out. The Casket could have sighed with rightness - to feel those hands embrace it for the first time. Love, hurt, ambition, they curled in the creature’s black little heart. The Casket basked in those quaint emotions, rightness overwhelming its disdain for such silly matters of the flesh.

The creature gasped as the Casket ate away at the insignificant spells that bound its appearance. Blue skin, red eyes, the true face of the bearer. It released the Casket for a moment. But their union was too intoxicating for its greedy heart. It reached out again, with steady hands this time, taking the Casket in hand with an unspoken vow - to be at once its master and servant. The Casket did not long to be ruled like the protector or spread sick tendrils of control like the gauntlet. It rejoiced in finding its equal, its bearer. They were meant for each other, as though one were created for the other. In fact, one had been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next story in this series is call “The Season of War and Winter,” and takes place on Jotunheim as Thor, Loki, and their friends fight a war against the Jotun. It will be from Loki’s point of view and will focus on how he feels about fighting an on-the-ground war against his kin and how that affects his relationship with Thor. What exactly are Loki's intentions and will fighting side by side bring the brothers closer together? Or will Loki’s evolving opinions on the Jotun drive them apart? Will Loki and Sif repair the rift between them? What will happen when Odin awakes? And what about Sleipnir?
> 
> I know I have been spoiling you all with very frequent updates, but I still have my SGA big bang fic to finish and also some other series to update, on top of real life commitments. I won’t be able to start the sequel for a month at the earliest, probably several months. For notices, you can subscribe to the Epochs series on AO3, friend me on LJ (tzzzz), or follow me on tumblr (tzzzztz).


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